


The Pyre

by RookHill



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Althouh this doesn't factor into the story until later, Antisemitism, Child Abuse, Classism, Credence Barebone-centric, Domestic Violence, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Gravebone, Graves is a trans man, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Consensual Touching, Racism, Religious Conflict, Religious Fanaticism, Religious Guilt, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Inexperience, Sexual Repression, Sinophobia, Slash, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Male Character, Xenophobia, gredence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2020-03-29 14:25:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19021756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RookHill/pseuds/RookHill
Summary: Despite fighting all his life against his true nature, Credence often feels he's destined for the witch's pyre, for the flames of hell. Then Mr. Graves arrives, and Credence comes to wonder if it wouldn't be so bad to burn.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating, archive warnings and tags are subject to change as the story progresses.
> 
> The specific content warnings for this chapter are: Discussion of parental physical abuse and semi-graphic description of wounds caused by said abuse.

Tina always comes on Tuesdays.

Credence strains for the sound of her leather shoes on the rain-slicked road. Any minute, she’ll turn into the alley with the collar of her coat turned up against the drizzle, a small, nervous smile peeking over periwinkle lapels. Tina always comes on Tuesdays. Always Tuesdays, for the last month and a half.

Minutes pass. Four o’clock comes with the clang of a far-off church bell, and Credence feels the sound like a knell inside his chest, beating at the back of his ribs. He starts folding inwards in resignation, shoulders hunched and cold knees bending. He slides his hands deep within his pockets and clenches tight, his palms throbbing around his wounds, against the sharp crescents of his nails. Maybe this is for the best, he thinks, as he watches a noisy cab break across the grey slot of light at the end of the alley. He should have known better than to hope she’d close his cuts again, that she’d come at all. In the end, consorting with people like Tina, with _witches_ , goes against everything Ma ever taught him.

Then, someone comes around the corner.

For an instant, Credence thinks it’s her, it’s really her, but his hope is rewarded with a jab of betrayal. A man stands at the end of the lane. He’s hard to see from such a distance – little more than a shadow snipped into the waning light. His long, black coat flutters around his legs in the rising wind, and his eyes are lost beneath the heavy set of his black brows. A shiver rakes up the boy’s spine. The stranger looks at Credence for a long, trembling moment. Then, just when the instinct to flee sparks fire in the boy’s cold-numbed nerves, the man turns on his heel and disappears back into the New York bustle. He leaves behind a strange blue shape on the back of Credence’s lids when he blinks in surprise.

The alleys aren’t safe. These narrow cracks between the tall, brick towers – where the dirt sweeps in to settle, where the coldness convenes out of spite for the sun – these are the places where the monsters lurk. Monsters in the form of strange men in long coats. And monsters just like Credence.

Credence pulls his jacket close around his frame and chokes down the lump in his throat.

He makes the long trek home. He all but forgets about the man, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget about Tina Goldstein.

When Tuesday comes again, Credence decides he’ll never see her again.

He plans to hand out flyers at Allen and Grand well into evening, well past four o’clock. He offers them to passers-by with an unsteady hand, fingers freshly stained with ink. Only a young mother with a pram pays him the pleasantry of a half-hearted smile as she breezes past. The rest dash across the road with set jaws and pursed lips, determined to ignore him into nonexistence. If he doesn’t hand out all the pamphlets, Ma will write her disappointment in red stripes across his skin. Maybe he can dump the extras in the trash behind a restaurant, he thinks. Credence squints at the bistro across the way. The first hopeful blush of spring has graced New York, and the patio is peppered with young women in feathered caps, a flock of songbirds returned from winter migration. Credence scours their tiered serving trays with hungry eyes, their silver spires amounting to a royal city of dainty delights. He comes to the final table, stomach no less empty, and his fervent gaze skids off the sandwiches to a dark figure leaning against a lamppost.

And there he is.

The man from before is watching Credence from across the street.

The boy’s breath catches in his throat. His growling stomach twists as he veers his eyes to the confetti of newspaper scraps beneath his toes. Acting on instinct, Credence flattens his pamphlets against his chest, as though their godly condemnations might save him from the piercing and thoughtful gaze of the stranger. He’s unmistakable. It’s his flowing coat, it’s the hard set of his brow, but also the shiver he sends up the young man’s spine. Credence is ready to turn down the road and run the other way when he hears his name called out from behind.

“Credence! Sorry I’m late!”

Credence whips his head around to spot Tina picking her way through the crowd, a bright smile on her face and a paper bag bunched in her waving hand. Relief hits Credence so hard his eyes sting at the edges, but he bites his tongue to keep himself from crying. When she arrives, Credence has the overwhelming, ridiculous urge to disappear into the warm, woolen folds of her coat.

“I wish we could’ve talked last week,” Tina says all in a rush. With her heels and his hunch, they’re eye-to-eye. “We’ve been having a bit of an emergency. It’s kind of an ongoing international crisis, actually.” Something edges into her eyes, something almost like fear, but then she blinks it away. “My boss was keeping an eye on the situation while I was travelling. We’d actually like to ask you a few more questions about the Second Salemers, if that’s alright.” She looks over Credence’s shoulder, and when he follows her gaze, it’s to find himself staring into the face of the man from the alley.

Credence’s stomach gives a painful lurch, but now he’s sure his fear is founded. If Tina knows this man, works for this man, he’s certainly a witch. Credence has become acquainted with yet another enemy. Even more frightening than this revelation, though, is the way it excites him.

Credence flinches back and towards Tina. Unphased, the man gives a polite, unsmiling nod.

“Percival Graves,” he says.

Credence nods back in ritual respect. He can’t decide what’s more impolite – lowering his eyes or holding the man’s gaze – so he flickers between the two.

Up close, everything about Percival Graves is sleek and cold, like winter rain over dark stones. His fluid black coat melts into the smooth lines of his spotless suit, stark against the sharp lapels of his pressed, white shirt. His forehead is lined with age, and the hair behind his ears is silver. His eyes are deep and keen, like they could slice into Credence to sift through his secret thoughts. His mouth is strangely soft and pink against all his razor edges, like a primrose growing between the cracks of a cliff.

“I’m Credence Barebone,” Credence says, so quiet in the city buzz he wonders if he even hears.

“Is it alright if we ask you some more questions, Credence?”

The man’s voice is deeper than his own, but tamed to a half-hush amidst the crowd.

Credence nods again, and soon he’s setting out with the pair, giddy and sickened by his surrender to temptation.

Tina leads them around the corner and down the street, then ducks inside a crumbling carriageway. It’s long been made into a ramshackle hold for the boxes, barrels, and rotting refuse of the shops nearby. She hoists herself onto the biggest crate, and with a reassuring smile, Credence follows and sits down beside her, setting his pamphlets in between. Mr. Graves simply leans against the far wall. His dark form is almost lost against the soot of the bricks.

“Oh!” Tina chimes. “First order of business!” She unrolls the top of her paper bag and sets it in Credence’s lap. “Thought you might like some lunch.”

Credence peers inside to find a treasure trove of tiny, golden pastries, each bejewelled with strawberry jam and shining with sugar glaze. His mouth is watering, even as he tells Tina she doesn’t need to keep bringing him food. The witch deflects his plea with a wave of her hand. “I know that woman doesn’t feed you properly. Go ahead, take some.”

Credence is too hungry and too polite to keep protesting. He can’t help but smile as he plucks a fritter from the bag. Dozens of tissue-thin layers of pastry shatter around his mouth as he takes his first bite. They fall again his trousers like fluffy specks of snow.

“Don’t think I forgot about you, Director,” Tina chimes from beside him. “There’s more than enough to go around. Here, catch!”

Mr. Graves glares at his underling. He opens his mouth to reject her offer, but he’s cut short when Tina lobs a fritter at his face. He stumbles in surprise, tripping on the cobbles, but manages to catch the pastry without falling or getting a faceful of jam. He tries for a nasty scowl, but Credence catches the corners of his mouth twitching with barely-concealed humour.

“This is official business, Goldstein,” he reprimands, “not tea time.”

Tina doesn’t look cowed. In fact, she seems proud of herself for tripping her employer.

“Just be happy I got your favourite flavour, sir.”

Apparently resigned to Tina’s mischief, Mr. Graves falls into silence and starts eating his pastry. Credence can practically see him stitching the burst seam of his composure back together, closing up the flash of colour his co-worker yanked to the surface. Within a second, he’s back to being just as daunting, just as grim as before. Not a ghost of a smile to be seen.

Tina, for her part, decides it’s time to start her line of questions. Credence forces his attention away from her mysterious boss to relay the details of his family’s demonstration in Rockefeller Square, then their Sunday meeting. He brushes down the crumbs from his thighs and does his best to tell her all she wants to know. Part of him realizes he shouldn’t tell Tina about the Society. Ma would say he’s divulging information to the enemy, that he’s a traitor. And yet, despite over two decades of tutelage under Mary Lou Barebone, it’s hard to believe this witch means anyone harm. It’s hard to believe, when she’s so often eased the sting of his mother’s lashes. It’s hard to believe, when Tina says all she wants is to keep peace between regular people and those with magic.

If Credence is truly honest with himself, this strange woman named Tina Goldstein, this witch, is the only friend he’s ever known.

He tells her everything.

“These orphans…” Tina eventually says. She crumples the empty bag into her pocket. “The ones that report sightings of witchcraft in exchange for food… Have they ever found anyone and brought them to your Ma? Other children, maybe?”

Mr. Graves stands a little taller at the shift in topic, like it’s the question he’s been waiting for.

Credence thinks back, but shakes his head.

“A girl once said she saw a man disappear, but she didn’t know who it was, so Ma couldn’t bring a case to the police.”

The two witches share a meaningful look. Mr. Graves crosses the width of the carriageway to stand before Tina and Credence.

“We have reason to believe…” he says, weighing each word on his tongue before speaking it aloud, “that your sister Chastity may have been born to magical parents. Do you have any reason to suspect that Chastity may have magical abilities?”

Credence’s eyes widen in astonishment. The idea is ludicrous! Laughable, even!

“Chastity? But Chastity hates witches! She could never be one!”

At nineteen years old, her scorn runs just as blood-hot as her mother’s.

“And Modesty?” presses Mr. Graves. “Her parents were non-magical, but we’ve found that her father came from a wizarding household in Ireland before crossing to America.”

Credence quickly shakes his head, another incredulous ‘no.’

“She’s… just a little girl. She’s a _normal_ little girl.”

“And you yourself, Credence…” Mr. Graves regards the young man a long moment, brows knit in thought. “Tina tells me that Mary Lou has hinted your mother was a witch. And you, like Chastity and Modesty, have no magic to speak of. It’s hardly a coincidence.”

Credence feels Mr. Graves’ words like a vicious kick to the stomach. His mother, his real mother, has been tucked away in the innermost drawer of his heart ever since he could remember – a pressed belladonna bloom, sentimentally preserved and deeply feared. It’d taken weeks to admit the truth of his heritage to Tina, and now it’s echoing round and round the carriageway, with none of the terror or reverence it deserves.

“Why does it matter?” Credence fists his hands in the fabric of his trousers and dares to look Mr. Graves in the eye, emboldened by his loss, shame and betrayal. “Why does it matter where we came from?”

For all Credence’s hands are shaking and his voice hardly crests above a whisper, Mr. Graves seems surprised by his turn from complete compliance to spiteful defiance. The witch drops the tension from his shoulders and shifts his weight into one leg – a less confrontational stance.

“Because,” says Mr. Graves, “it seems Mary Lou specifically adopts kids from families with magical roots, probably with the aim of ‘saving’ them from witchcraft. If one of her children, or even just someone drawn to her attention, has magical abilities, then we need to know about it.”

Tina wedges into the anxious exchange by laying a light hand on Credence’s arm.

“Your Ma might hurt a young witch or wizard if they come her way,” she explains. “From what you’ve told me, she hates anyone who’s different, or who opposes her beliefs. It would be our duty to bring those kids into our world, where they could learn magic and be themselves. If you come across anyone who has magical abilities, you’d be doing us and them a favour by letting us know.”

Credence feels his defensive impulse grudgingly relax and fold itself away. He nods in understanding. As uncertain as he is about these two, about their world and their ways, pointing out one of their own doesn’t seem unreasonable, especially when the alternative is giving them up to the mercy of his mother. Credence brushes his fingers over the white strips of cotton tied tight across his hand. He’s a close acquaintance with her type of mercy.

The boy only realizes what he’s doing when Tina slides her fingers down his arm to take his palm in her own.

“I should’ve noticed sooner,” she says. Her words come from behind clenched teeth, but Credence knows her anger isn’t for him. “Do you want me to help again?”

A moment later, he’s picked apart the tricky knot and gingerly unpeeled the bandage from where it’s glued itself to his wound. Tina gives a sympathetic hiss as she draws it closer into view. Since their creation a week and a half ago, the skin around the three slashes has grown swollen and red, the lesions themselves changed from rust-red to putrid yellow. Tina sighs.

“This is going to need more than a simple healing spell,” she says.

“Here, let me see.”

Credence and Tina both look up in surprise as Mr. Graves bends over the young man’s hand to take a closer look.

“Hmm…” he says, “I have just the thing…”

Mr. Graves whisks out a stoppered bottle from the inner pocket of his coat. It can’t be bigger than his thumb, and it shimmers with a thick, green liquid the precise colour of a beetle’s wing. It’s a potion, Credence realizes with a start.

The witch meets his widened eyes as he releases the stopper. It gives a faint _pop!_

“When you’re in our line of business,” says Mr. Graves with a smirk, “you tend to stock up on precautions.”

Without hesitation, he takes the boy’s hand and upends the potion on top of his wound.

At first, all Credence can feel is the liquid’s faint heat, warmed by the older man’s body. That, and the rough calluses of his steady hand. Then suddenly, the emerald ooze starts to bubble and splutter. With alarm and fascination, Credence watches as the potion glows hotter and hotter, and as the bubbles fizz larger and larger, ballooning to the size of golf balls. Just when the liquid threatens to scorch his skin, the heat disappears along with the suds, vaporized in a puff of ether to reveal smooth, unmarred flesh.

Mr. Graves withdraws so Credence can examine his healed hand. He clenches and unclenches his fist in experimentation, and is relieved to find the flaring pain of before completely vanished along with the gashes. He blinks up at the man, then manages to coax his lagging tongue to stumble out a disbelieving “Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it,” is the gruff reply.

Mr. Graves casts Credence’s palm one last glance before dropping the empty bottle back in his pocket. His stare is stony and impassive. For all Credence can tell, it could just as easily be a look of sympathy as one of irritation over potion poorly spent. Eventually, the witch jerks his chin at Tina in some unspoken signal, and she hauls herself off the crate.

“Well, Credence,” she starts to say, in a voice unmistakably marking a goodbye. “Thanks for talking with us. Like I was saying, it’s tight at the office right now – all hands on deck. I won’t be able to meet with you regularly any more, but one of us will pop in from time to time to get updates, okay?”

Her words are like a second jab to the gut. He should be happy, he knows. He should feel relieved that these conniving sorcerers won’t be darkening his doorstep any time soon. It makes the tightness in his throat and its forecast of tears all the harder to bare.

“Alright,” Credence simply says, lacking any of the words to conjure what he really feels, unsure if he even wants to.

Tina seems to understand.

“See you around,” she says. With one last small, regretful smile, she turns on her heel and disappears in a swirl of dust.

She’s vanished in front of him a handful of times before, but Credence can’t help but marvel at the patch of shadow lately occupied by his friend.

Mr. Graves is slow to follow. He straightens the lines of his suit, then rocks back and forth from the toes to the heels of his leather shoes, as though there’s something he’s waiting to say. In the end, he doesn’t say anything. He just gives Credence half a nod in place of a farewell, twists quickly on the cobbles, and is eaten by the air.

When they’re gone, the carriageway feels wholly empty, like something inside the young man’s chest was spirited away along with the witches. It calls out in its emptiness as he slides from the crate and onto his feet, though he’s laboured for years to silence its song, to numb its pain. He recalls Mr. Grave’s rough kindness as he glides ink-stained fingers over the perfectly mended slashes in his skin. The space in his chest eagerly gobbles up the scrap of affection, lean and tough though it was.

Credence starts out for home, forgetting the pamphlets completely. As always, in the long days ahead, he’ll think of Tina Goldstein. And now he’ll think of Mr. Graves, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is a creation of J. K. Rowling, David Yates, Warner Bros. Pictures and Heyday Films. I claim no rights to the original content. This story wasn't written for profit, but for my own amusement (and perhaps yours).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating, archive warnings and tags are subject to change as the story progresses.
> 
> The specific content warnings for this chapter are: Discussion of parental physical abuse, homophobia, internalized homophobia, religious guilt, racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and suicidal thoughts.

One day in May, spring breaks open in a gush.

Credence dashes through the church and out the back door, arms heaped high with sheets. The breeze is still sharp enough to sting the tips of his ears vivid pink, but the beating sun is warm in equal measure, and generous in the way it coats the drab colours of Pike Street in honeyed hues. Credence pins the laundry to the clothesline slivered between their lot and the next, and the sheets flap and billow like sails twitching with anticipation at the start of a long journey. A simple kind of happiness settles in his chest as he looks out over the afternoon skyline, where a cabled peak of Manhattan Bridge just crests into view. Soon the seagulls will be crying out over the piers, and boys will be scrambling up the tin roofs of dockside shanties to splash into the East River.

Suddenly, Credence is tugged from his reverie by something out of place in the corner of his eye. He turns slowly to the clothesline, the hairs on his arms standing on end in foreboding. As the sheets sway in the wind, he sees them lick and curl around a shape. A body. There’s someone standing between the sails, keeping perfectly still. Someone…

“Boo!”

Modesty rushes through the laundry.

“Oomph!”

She barrels straight into his stomach, but her waving arms tangle in the wet sheets along the way. Credence quickly catches his breath, then peels her away from the cotton so she doesn’t send the whole line crashing.

“Did I scare you?” Modesty asks. Her blue eyes seem as huge as the sky as she looks up at her brother, electrified with mischief. Her tight bun is unraveling at the nape of her neck.

“Of course!” he says, and feels a rush of warmth in his stomach despite its recent abuse. He gives her a fond smile and gently folds a wayward lock behind her ear. “You were terrifying!”

Modesty giggles in success as she darts away to run lopsided circles around the meager yard. She beats her arms up and down to catch the sun’s heat, looking like a bird ready to break away into the wind. Credence sets himself on the low back stoop and watches her play awhile. Unbidden, Mr. Graves’ words slink into his thoughts, casting a thin coat of frost over this moment of affection:

‘Her father came from a wizarding household…’

He’s seen no sign of a witch in weeks, yet ever since his last meeting with Tina, the threat of sorcery seems nearer than ever.

‘Mary Lou adopts kids with magical roots…’

‘That can’t be true!’ he tells himself, tells the Mr. Graves in his mind. ‘It can’t be true she comes from witches! She isn’t tainted! She can’t be tainted.’

Credence always knew his blood was soiled, dirtied at the very source. Really, it makes sense his mother was a witch. He feels her sin pumping his heart with despicable desires, thirsting to be spilt in the name of repentance. But Modesty, _Modesty_ is sweet, and kind. She’s God-fearing. She’s normal. Modesty is how she should be.

There can’t be magic in her blood, if only because she’s nothing like her brother.

Credence feels his pulse racing, foul blood knocking against the confines of his sallow skin. He forces the grimace from his face, and his eyes fall closed. He needs to stay calm. He can’t panic again, not again, not out here in the yard where someone could see. The boy takes a dredging breath and coaxes his thoughts towards the season’s soothing touch. With all his might, he fixates on the breeze flirting with his straight-cut bangs, then the sunlight tracing phantom fingers around the edges of his jaw. If he concentrates, he can imagine he’s drifting high above the city. It’s not the flying of his dreams – stormy and confused, and choked with ash. No, not like his dreams. Right now, he’s wrapped up in weightless blue, slipping softly into cobalt sleep…

But before he drifts away, something pulls his sleeve.

Credence opens his eyes, and Modesty’s perched at his side.

“I have a secret,” she says. “I want to show you.”

After only a moment’s reprieve, Credence plummets to the present. His sister’s lips are pressed together in a fierce line, and her bun is all in gilded tatters from her dance around the yard. This secret is dire, that much he can tell. It must be the reason she sought him out at all. The Barebone children make a fast and steady trade of solemn whispers, but even so, he feels an unusual lurch of foreboding as he asks: “What is it?”

Modesty peers left and right for prying eyes. She looks up, pondering the chance of being overheard by a pigeon, or maybe God himself. She presses close against the side of her co-conspirator and then, when she deems the coast is clear, pulls her hand from her pocket.

“Oh.”

It’s all he can say. Whatever Credence thought would happen, this isn’t it. He feels a wave of relief, quickly followed by awe.

Modesty is holding the most beautiful brooch he’s ever seen. Five lacy petals of polished gold radiate from an azure stone, each one flecked with crystal drops of dew. Sunlight flutters around the gems’ cut faces, bouncing inwards and outwards, turning each one deep as an ocean. It’s otherworldly amidst the clapboard and rusted metal of the yard. Indeed, it’s an exotic specimen from the far-off land of fur-trimmed soirées and velvet promenades.

“It was on the side of the road under some cans!” Modesty exclaims. “I went to pick up my ball, and there it was!” The brooch jitters in her trembling palm as she holds it out to see. When Credence finally tears his gaze from the jewels, her brow is scrunched in worry.

“What should I do?”

Modesty’s voice is small and desperate, and it sets a bolt of urgency through her brother. Credence knows they need to act fast. It’s a staggering discovery, but if there’s one thing he’s learned in his twenty-five years, it’s that good fortune has a cruel penchant for twisting into terrible luck. If the brooch is as expensive as it seems, it could be Modesty’s first-class ticket away from a life of servitude at the Society. Then again, if anyone discovers Modesty’s treasure, they’ll surely think she stole it. Judging by the girl’s expression, she’s come to the same conclusions.

Quickly, he closes her fist around the brooch.

“Don’t show anyone else!” he warns in a whisper. “And hide it someplace no one will look!”

Modesty squeezes hard around the brooch.

“But where should I hide it? Ma always finds –”

Just then, the back door swings open. Modesty and Credence both jolt their heads around with a start. Out of some small mercy, it’s Chastity in the threshold.

A very small mercy.

The girl peers down the length of her nose at her brother and sister. She’s tucked away the sharpest edges of her suspicion, but her eyes are hard and bright as celluloid. Modesty stuffs her hand inside her pocket, but not without catching the attention of her elder sister. From his vantage point, Credence can’t shake the feeling he’ll be trampled beneath the heel of Chastity’s sturdy leather shoes, so he scrambles to his feet to face her. Modesty follows.

“What do you have there?” the middle sibling asks. She tries for an air of perky nonchalance, but it comes out sharp and strained.

“Nothing!” Modesty blurts, convincing no one.

Chastity cocks her head, like a bird pondering the crunchiness of a bug.

“Sure you’re not hiding something, you two?”

“There’s nothing!”

Credence shakes his head, keeping quiet and refusing to look up from his toes. It was certain since the moment Chastity arrived that Modesty’s prize was in peril. For all he knows, his sister was listening at the keyhole. Now everything turns on the middle sibling’s loyalty – whether she thinks she owes it to their mother, or to them.

After a long moment of silence, it becomes clear neither of them will break under Chastity’s inquisition. Not hers, anyway. She dismisses the standoff by spinning around and marching back inside.

“Come on,” she calls back, “or you’ll miss dinner.”

Their fight’s been postponed, it seems, but Credence knows better than to hope it’s been swept aside.

There’s no time to find a hiding place. Like soldiers falling into position, they file inside the matchbox kitchen. Chastity puts out plates as the others wash their hands, then each child finds their chair. Modesty wrestles with her unruly hair, and manages something to pass muster. The girls face each other across the table, while Credence takes his seat at the head. Ma insisted on his placement. It’s the meaningless residue of some tradition or another. The only patriarch in this household is their Lord the Father.

Now everyone’s in place, they start their stony vigil. They’re waiting for the clock to chime, the fateful turning of the hour. At last, it mutters a dirge for five o’clock, and to the beat of its low, steady thrums, they hear Mary Lou begin her descent from the mezzanine. Credence counts each tap of her heels on the stairs, then the creaks in the floor as she crawls closer. He knows from old habit it’s twenty-one steps, then seven quiet groans. And then, just when he expects, she appears in the doorway dressed in darkest purple, a spectre summoned by the bell for its nightly haunt.

“Good evening, children,” says Ma.

“Good evening, Ma,” they say as one.

Ma’s voice is smooth and low. She smiles her hollow smile at each of them in turn as she takes her seat at the other head of the table. They say a brief prayer before they’re allowed to touch their food, and Credence sets into his dinner with less eagerness than might be expected from the rumble in his belly. The cabbage is cooked to sulphurous mush, and the sausages are mostly sawdust. All the family’s funds come from member donations, and much of that money goes back to feeding the Society’s ambitions, not the hungry mouths of the Barebone brats.

If Ma finds the food unsavoury, she never lets on. She carves her sausage into perfect, even coins, then mounds equal portions of cabbage onto each. She disappears the morsels one by one, and in between her slow, careful chews, she quizzes her children on how they spent their day. The acolytes recount their chores in as few words as possible. Chastity goes last. When she comes to the end of her report on making meals, her eyes linger on Mary Lou, holding something unspoken in the muggy kitchen air.

“Was there something else, Chastity?” Ma asks, patting her unpainted mouth with a napkin.

The other siblings meet their sister’s gaze in that brief slip of seconds before Modesty’s undoing. Credence sees how she’s kept her button eyes polished and pitiless, and reads in them a sure sign of impending betrayal. Modesty sees it too, and Credence knows from experience that this moment of treachery will wound a hundred times as deep as any punishment to come.

“Modesty’s hiding something. Something she said she found.”

Credence slides his gaze to the sludge on his plate, so he doesn’t see the way Ma snaps her head to her youngest child, nor the cutting sharpness of suspicion in her stare. Regardless, those familiar actions play perfectly in his mind’s eye, like they’re sewn to the inside of his skull.

“What are you hiding?” Ma asks, almost gently.

“Nothing! Nothing!” Modesty cries.

Credence can’t bear it. He reaches around the table to press her hand. “Just tell her,” he mumbles. Nothing could save her secret now.

Modesty bites her lip in anxious indecision, but one glance at the clench of her mother’s jaw says she’ll dally at her peril.

“I found a piece of jewellery,” she says at last. “I found it on the road.”

Ma takes a moment’s contemplation. She nudges her plate aside to lace her fingers on the table. A soft weave of surgical tools.

“How unusual,” she says. “People don’t usually leave their jewellery lying in the street.”

“Someone must have dropped it by mistake!”

Ma studies her daughter with narrowed eyes, like her gaze could slice through her heart to dissect it for its lies. Modesty’s always had a flair for harmless tricks, but Credence knows without a doubt that theft is far beyond her. Ma’s never been so trusting of her flock.

“Give it to me,” she whispers.

“It’s in her pocket!” Chastity supplies, but she needn’t bother – Ma can clearly see she’s clutching something in her dress.

Ma presents her hand in silent command. Her nails are cut close and clean. Her palm is white, supple and unstained. It’s a hand more likely to belong to a penthouse wife, not a woman who simmered in the grime and grunge of an assembly line for well over a decade.

Modesty knows she’ll not suffer another moment’s delay. With bitterness flashing in her eyes, she pulls out the brooch and betrays it to her mother’s claw.

Ma turns the brooch in the marigold light that’s waning in the window. Credence peeks from his plate, and even from across the table he catches the sparkle of the stones and the lustre of their burnished bloom. The young man spots something like hunger in his mother’s eye, something like the leer of a starving crow. Such excitement is rarely expended outside discussions of the Saviour.

“You’ve been a very naughty girl,” Ma says. She weighs the brooch in her palm, as though its promising heft is equal to her daughter’s crime.

“I didn’t steal it!” Modesty shouts, enraged. “I found it, and now it belongs to me!”

Ma’s eyebrow twitches. Her talons lock around the brooch. “Even if you didn’t steal it,” she snaps, “you should have shown it to me at one! What use could a little girl find in such a vain trinket?”

With that, Ma shoves the brooch deep inside her pocket. Credence doesn’t doubt it’ll make the perfect coal for his mother’s holy fire. It’ll buy them new banners, maybe a second printing press. She’ll prove she’s bound for heaven, one way or another.

“I’ll inquire to see if any jewellery has been lost or stolen in the area,” she says, and folds her hands on the table once more. “Someone must be missing it.”

Modesty’s cheeks are scorching red. She balls her hands into fists where they sit on the table, knuckles rattling on the wood. Credence wishes she had the self-preservation to bridle her feelings. He wishes Ma was the kind of woman who shouted when she was cross.

“You know better than to try keeping secrets,” Ma says. Her lips hardly move as she speaks, words ghosting through, hissing their escape. “Rinse your plate, then go to your room to receive your punishment.”

Credence feels his sorry super rise in his throat. His hide recollects being thrown across a knee, being painted a patchwork of greens and blues, and he clamps his eyes closed. The boy hears Modesty clambers from her seat, then there’s the swish of water mixed with stifled sobs. The girl returns to hover by her chair, expecting Ma to rise as well, but Ma makes no move to stand. Instead, she addresses her middle child.

“Chastity, since you’re the one who caught her, I think you should be the one to give Modesty her punishment. Don’t you?”

Chastity’s breath hitches in alarm. She’d been quick to play informant, to point out where punishment is due, but at the prospect of dirtying her hands, her silver tongue’s run dry of words.

Chastity should’ve known this was coming, Credence thinks. She should’ve known this was the natural path for mother’s perfect protégé.

“I really don’t think –” she tries, when she collects herself, but Ma cuts her short.

“Oh, _I do.”_

There’s a beat, then Credence hears his sister make up her mind. The legs of her chair scratch backwards as she shambles to her feet. His eyelids burn as he crushes them even tighter, as he tastes the sour tang of bile on the back of his tongue.

Then, suddenly, a thought strikes him – a final defense! – and his eyes burst open.

“Wait, don’t!”

All three heads shoot to Credence. They stare at him, waiting – one with hope, one with nervous agitation, and the last with razor-sharp warning.

“The… the meeting…” Credence stammers, standing from his seat. “The meeting is in only half an hour. Modesty… she’ll be all red. She won’t be able to sit properly in her seat. She won’t be able to keep from crying. Everyone… everyone will see.”

It would never be enough to save his own skin, but for Modesty… maybe there’s a chance.

Ma glares at him, and no one’s breathing. Credence thinks he might crumple back into his chair, but then her gaze wanders away over his ear to the clock on the wall. To everyone’s surprise, she’s considering what he said.

“Thank you for reminding me of the meeting, Credence,” Ma says at last, and something’s come over her now. Her ruffled feathers are slicked back in place, her gore-spattered beak tucked beneath a modest wing. She’s remembered her holy mission, and their family dispute seems a trifle by compare. Credence shivers.

“Children, please prepare yourselves for the meeting.”

‘Thank God,’ he thinks. _ _ _ _‘___ Thank God_. _ _’__

 ______T______ he trio surge from the kitchen and up to the mezzanine, scurrying like church mice to the safety of their holes. Chastity cloisters herself in her room without so much as a glance over her shoulder. Credence watches the hem of her black dress slither behind the door and out of sight, and thinks that maybe, maybe Mr. Graves was right. Maybe she’s got witch’s blood.

Modesty leaves her door ajar when she rushes to her room. Credence knows he’s meant to follow.

He finds her on the bed, bent up over herself like a nail that’s been hit the wrong way. For a moment it’s like he’s looking at himself, at a younger Credence Barebone. He’s by the door with his hand on the knob, but then he’s wrapped up in the quilt as well, just twelve years old and bleeding for the third time that week. He’s coming untethered again, he realizes. Credence knows it by the way he seems to float to her bedside, by the way he’s watching their intermingled grief from somewhere above the scene.

The boy sits down beside his sister. The bed frame creaks its complaints, pointing out his presence.

“It’s alright, Modesty,” he says. His voice sounds odd in his ears, like a stranger speaking from inside his skin. “Don’t cry, Modesty. Don’t cry.”

She lets herself be gently pried into a sitting pose, and to her credit, her blotchy skin is dry. The lightning in her eyes has fizzled into lifeless puddles.

“I won’t,” she says around the thickness in her throat. “I won’t cry. Thank you, Credence.”

The boy reckons he ought to say something, but he can’t seem to fish together enough coherent thoughts. Instead, he lets her cling against his vest and digs his lips against her crown, hoping she takes what she needs. Eventually, Modesty disentangles and looks across the room with puffy eyes. Credence follows her gaze to the hairbrush on the desk. They’ve lost time with all their commiserations, and soon the first members will arrive.

“Here,” he says. “Let me.”

Modesty shuffles in the sheets until she’s faced the wall. Credence dips her brush in the bedside basin, then sets about untangling her nest of hair. It spills out from her make-shift bun and over her shoulders in frazzled clumps, but slowly he works it into sleek, sunny ribbons that shimmer in the flickering light of the lamp. Modesty hums happily at the careful drag of the comb’s teeth over her scalp, and Credence can only hope he’s undoing the knots in her chest the same way he’s undoing the ones in her hair.

With a pang of regret, he gathers up her tresses and schools them into a twist behind her ears, not a strand out of line.

“Do you think Aleister and Maggie will be at the meeting?” she asks, squirming slightly as he fits a noose of ribbon around his work. He can tell she’s trying to turn her mind towards cheerful things.

“Probably,” he says when he registers the question. The Mallemorts are loyal members, and their son and daughter never fail to attend with their family.

“Do you think we could be friends? Maggie’s really nice, and I think Aleister likes you.”

The boy’s fingers falter in the bow. A memory of brown eyes beneath a cloud of ginger curls bobs to the surface of his hazy thoughts.

“You… think so?”

Modesty nodes emphatically, and he has to pull the ribbon tight before everything’s undone.

“He’s always smiling at you!”

Her words snag at something in his heart, something he’s not meant to think about. Credence puts back the brush and quickly rises from the bed, compelled by a fear he has no desire to examine.

“I think he’s just happy to be at the meetings,” he says.

Modesty gives an odd kind of smile, the closest she’s ever come to smirking.

“No one at the meetings is ever happy like _that._ ”

Her words stay with him as he finishes his own toilette, and as he descends to greet their guests. His face may be newly washed and his shoes freshly shined, but Credence is far from prepared for a throng of devout New Yorkers. It’s too much to ask, to swing from bomb disposal to placating the public in less than half an hour. He’s glad he’s only halfway inside his body, or else it might feel worse than it already does. Credence hunches in the entryway, nodding each member inside without really seeing any of their faces. Eventually he spots the Mallemorts creeping up the street.

Mr. Mallemort, with his long, lanky frame, barely fits through the front door’s Gothic arch. He juts his chin at Credence by way of recognition, keeping his hands stuffed in the pockets of his faded duster. Tiny Mrs. Mallemort concedes a nervous smile as she ushers her daughter inside by the elbow. Only Aleister stops to say hello.

“Credence, good to see you!”

He has nothing of his father’s height or gruff demeanor, but all his crooked teeth and sun-speckled skin. Today, his shirt is tucked smartly into a pair of plus-fours, clearly taking advantage of the warming weather. His ringlets are pressed back in thick slicks of Brilliantine, and it makes him shine like a new penny.

“Good to see you, too,” Credence says, and to his surprise, a little bubble of happiness starts to build at the bottom of his apathy.

Aleister beams. “Thanks for letting me borrow your book!” he chimes. “Maggie’s getting much better at reading!”

The man slides a large hardcover from his messenger bag into the other’s palms. It’s deeply worn around the spine, with _Bible Stories for Children_ flaking off in little bits of silver foil.

“I know your Ma doesn’t approve of cinemas,” he says, coming close to whisper in his ear, “so I slipped something inside I think you’ll like.”

Credence flips the book around to notice something wedged between the pages. When he peeks inside, it’s to find two back issues of _Movie Weekly Magazine_ in all their crumpled glory. The topmost cover features a blushing blonde gazing up at him through kohl-rimmed eyes. Credence barely keeps from squeaking as he slams the book shut and peers around the church. Out of some act of Providence, Ma’s engrossed with the Johnsons and doesn’t spot their dubious exchange. A part of Credence is compelled to shred the contraband, while the other relishes the though of flipping through forbidden pages under the cover of night.

Aleister laughs at the mingled horror and excitement on the young man’s face. “No need to thank me!” he says, then flashes his rickety rails of teeth before rushing past to join his parents.

Credence doesn’t have time to fret over the unexpected gift, because soon the rest of the members are flooding in, and before he knows it, they’re piling into pews. Modesty waves him into the front row where she’s stuck herself beside Maggie, and Credence finds himself jammed between her and Aleister. It’s the appropriate place for their leader’s children, and for their most faithful congregants. Credence slides the book under the pew, praying it won’t be spotted beneath his shoes.

The hall is full of chatter, but it’s not quite cheerful. Even the most pleasant conversations are tinged with the threat of conspiracy, and weighed down with a common, dread purpose. The congregants’ voices whine together in the boy’s buzzing ears like a swarm of flies on a hot August day. Thankfully it doesn’t take long for Mary Lou to take the lectern, and the voices fall away into silence.

“Welcome, everyone, once again!” she says, sweeping her arms out to encompass the whole of the crowd. Her volume is politely restrained, but Ma’s voice rings strong and clear through the tiny church. She’s their loving mother, their righteous matron, their pious proselyte. What she does behind closed doors is far from their minds. What she does to her children could never be questioned.

“And welcome to our newest guest, who’s made her way by the grace of God to be here with us tonight at the New Salem Philanthropic Society!” Ma gestures to a woman in the very back, and everyone cranes their necks around to take a look at the stranger.

The young lady in question shrivels at the sudden attention, but the man by her side gives her hand a comforting pat, completely unphased by the scores of searching eyes.

“What’s your name, my dear?” Ma asks. She scoops her hand in the air, requesting her to rise.

The woman needs another pat to the hand, but eventually she obeys.

“I’m Hattie Fox,” she says, with a voice as nervous as she looks. It bears just a smidge of the Bronx. “Eddie’s my brother.” She nods at the man she came with.

“And what inspired you to be with us tonight, Miss Fox?”

Her dress is coral pink, her lips the dewy red of a freshly-watered rose. In other words, she sticks out like a thorn amidst the congregation’s palette of washed-out greys and oatmeal browns. To Credence, Miss Fox looks like a glowing haze, a misplaced bit of sunset in the sinking night.

“Well…” She darts her eyes around the room, twisting the handles of her crocheted clutch. “I never really put much stock in what Eddie was doing here. Honestly, I thought it was sort of strange, believing in witches and things in the twentieth century. But… I think I believe now. I saw something, something I just can’t explain.”

A rumble of excitement goes through the crowd. Ma leans closer over the front of the lectern. Her eyes are the combustible blue of pure-hot flame.

“What did you see, Miss Fox?”

The crowd’s eager ears do nothing for the girl’s nerves. When she speaks next, it’s with a tremble of terror.

“I woke up one night to the sound of a bird outside my window,” she says. “It was the wrong hour for birds, you see. Must have been two o’clock! I looked out through the curtains, and there was this robin, flying through the street! And then it landed on the sidewalk, and just as it did, the robin transformed! It turned into a woman, right before my eyes!”

The crowd explodes with frightened exclamations.

“I thought I was crazy, or dreaming!” the girl exclaims. “I didn’t dare tell a soul, but then it all became too much to keep a secret.”

Ma nods gravely. “We thank the Lord for guiding you to us, and for giving you the courage to speak the truth! Many of us have witnessed witchcraft with our own eyes. Believe me, my dear, you’re not crazy, nor are you dreaming. You’re in good company!”

“It scared my poor sister half to death!” Eddie cries as Miss Fox lowers back into the pew. “I just hate to think one of those things was right outside our door! And here I was believing we lived in a safe neighbourhood!”

“Degenerates!” growls Mr. Mallemort. The whole pew shudders as Aleister’s imposing sire thumps his fist on the armrest. “Ever since the war, the moral character of this country’s been in decline! And why? Because our government’s been letting in all sorts of people without any thought to how genetic inferiors are weak to the temptations of the Enemy! Mark my words, we’ll be seeing more witches in these parts, so long as we’re seeing more foreigners, more socialists, more Jews, and more sodomites!”

It’s at this moment Credence realizes Aleister’s thigh is pressed up against his own. It’s unavoidable, crammed as they are inside the aisle, but all at once he feels the heat of his skin and the solid touch of his body. If he shifted just a bit, their knees would bump together, kissing at the caps.

He might be sick again.

“Did you recognize the witch?” barks Mr. Rudd, a stout man with a wiry moustache.

Miss Fox shakes her head. “I don’t think so; she was facing the other way.”

“We need to smoke these people out and take them to task!” bellows Mr. Mallemort, as though they hadn’t spoken. “Their crimes can’t go unpunished!”

“‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!’” cries Aleister.

Credence looks up from Aleister’s thigh to his face. His copper hair is like a polished halo around the hatred etched in his features. Credence doesn’t doubt he’d really do it, that he’d kill a witch on sight. He’s smiling with faithful fervour, a snaggle-toothed zealot. There’s bloodlust boiling in his eyes.

“You are correct, Mr. Mallemort,” Ma says, raising her hand for silence. The members fall quiet at her deft command. “Witchcraft mustn’t go unpunished. But as I’ve said before, we can’t mete out punishment ourselves. We must appeal to our justice system to realize the plague that’s fallen on our city. We must convince them to do God’s work, or else it will be _us_ coming under fire, not the witches. We _must_ have the police on our side.”

Both Aleister and his father huff in frustration, but everyone else nods in hasty agreement.

“That’s why we must continue our important work!” Ma says. “And why we must stand together in solidarity against this encroaching evil! Come, friends, let us pray together! Let us pray for protection for Miss Fox, and for ourselves, as we strive forward to crush the Enemy!”

And somehow Credence falls to his knees. He knows he must be kneeling, feels the floor beneath his soles, but then he’s also up in the rafters, hovering in the draft. He sees the balding crowns of the oldest men, the ladies’ cloche caps, and the leather-bound bibles in each pair of hands. He sees Ma at the head of the crowd, head bowed in prayer. He sees Credence, small and empty.

Ma prays:

“O Father in Heaver, may Your Spirit speak to me in that I speak to You. I am undeserving. I am full of infirmities and sin, but I look to Your tender mercy, for You are full of grace. Stand between me and evil, that no sin corrupts my mission, and that I may follow my duty and never stray from Your path.

“O God, You have declared that the unbelieving, the vile, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, and all liars will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. Help to guard our souls against the wiles of these agents of the Enemy, and help us to smite down those who would pull us from Your light. Amen!”

“Amen!” the crowd cries.

Credence has a sense of the meeting going on a good while longer, and he knows he prays a handful of times, but for the life of him, he can’t remember a single moment of the service. Sometimes he’s floating aimlessly along the ceiling like a lost balloon, and sometimes he’s nowhere at all. When he finds himself hauling empty pews against the wall and sweeping pebbles from the floor, he realizes it must be over. Credence doesn’t know whether he regrets missing Aleister’s goodbye, or if he never wants to see his face again. He’s just begun to climb the stairs to bed when someone puts a hand on his shoulder. Is it Modesty? No, not Modesty. He struggles to bring the woman’s face into focus.

It’s his eldest sister, Chastity.

“You forgot this,” she says, pushing _Bible Stories for Children_ against his chest. The church is empty now, save for Ma and Modesty wiping down the kitchen. Even so, Chastity leans in close so no one else will hear. “And you forgot to take in the laundry. Better do it, before Ma sees.”

Credence has enough wherewithal to wonder if this is Chastity’s attempt at apologizing for the night’s earlier events. He finds he doesn’t have the energy to be grateful, only enough to sneak through the back door into the yard.

Outside, the night is tinged orange by the streetlamps lining the road. Everything is cast in shades of ruddy grey, and the sheets moving in the breeze are a lifeless yellow. They dance this way and that in a snappy, artless waltz, and even in his current state, it’s impossible to miss the tall shadow bleeding through the cloth.

For the second time today, someone’s lying in wait for Credence.

Credence isn’t sure what compels him to do it – bravery, foolishness, or a lack of feeling altogether. Whichever it is, he rips the laundry from the line in three frantic tugs, and just as he’d hoped, as he’d feared, there’s Mr. Percival Graves, all alone in the gloom.

The witch is just as Credence remembers, matches up perfectly with the scolding spectre in his mind. There’s that same flowing coat, that same clean-shaven frown. Only this time his smug indifference has been traded for a wide-eyed stare, and his wand is drawn at his side. Evidently, he’d expected an uneventful rendezvous, not the wild despair in his informant’s eyes.

“Credence… do you have a moment?” whispers Mr. Graves. He seems uncertain, startled, which is all wrong coming from a man who’s practically confidence incarnate.

“I – I can’t,” Credence says, sounding shattered as he hurtles the sheets inside the laundry basket. “I can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry.” And then Credence charges back inside, never, he supposes, to be tempted by witches ever again. And never to see Mr. Graves.

The rush to his bedroom is a blur. When the latch falls behind him, Credence can’t help but press his cheek against the cool glass of his window and look down into the yard. But the patch of dirt behind their home is empty, and nothing stirs save for an alley cat slinking away along the fence.

“He’s gone,” Credence says to no one. The witch is gone, gone for good, and he’s completely alone. He should get to bed. He should get to sleep, Credence thinks, should try to forget. The boy puts his hands around his neck to undo his tie, but they just stay there, squeezing. “He’s gone,” he says. “He’s gone. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want him. I don’t want him.”

It smells like smoke. Is he burning?

The window rattles in its pane as Credence convulses. He stuffs his fingers down his throat, trying to keep the screams inside.

‘I don’t want him,’ he thinks, as his mouth fills with cinders and the room floods with inky fog. Credence feels himself floating again, and he knows he’s in another nightmare. ‘I’m not like him. I’m not like that. I’m not like that. I’m not a witch. I’m not a witch. I’mnotawitch. I’mnotawitchnota witch I’m notawitch awitchawitchawitch…'

And then he falls into a troubled dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things will get happier next chapter, I promise!
> 
> "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is a creation of J. K. Rowling, David Yates, Warner Bros. Pictures and Heyday Films. I claim no rights to the original content. This story wasn't written for profit, but for my own amusement (and perhaps yours).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating, archive warnings and tags are subject to change as the story progresses.
> 
> The specific content warnings for this chapter are: Discussion of parental physical abuse, suicidal thoughts and classism.

Credence feels no pain when he’s dreaming. No pain, or anything of any kind. The night is one long haze of wind and darkness. Sometimes the rushing smoke condenses into solid forms, and he peers down at great black roads like shining rivers. Flecks of gold line the asphalt streams, and Credence dimly knows they’re streetlights, striving in vain to burn away the wicked plots that unfold in the deepest deeps of the witching hour. He needn’t wonder where he’s going, or where he’ll come to be. Something outside his body, something greater than himself, propels him on and on and on through the cold city mists. All he does is breathe, and soar, and wait.

And then the long night ends.

Credence feels his mass come together like stones swept up in a dustpan – the collective weight of a body far too heavy to fly. The nothingness congeals beneath his skin into sweaty sheets and the familiar feel of floor against his face. Morning sun slices through the window and straight through his heavy lids. The boy’s legs are twisted in the covers, which have tumbled from the mattress, and he’s dressed in yesterday’s attire. The room is calm and quiet. Yesterday, everything inside him was hurled up and smashed asunder. Today, there’s nothing left, not even the urge to get up off the ground, and he’s grateful for this unwoundable void.

Credence lingers in his vacant trance for a long while, but eventually the prickling in his legs forces him to haul his body up the nightstand and over the basin. There’s a mirror above the bowl and below the crucifix, about the size of a dinner plate – large enough to help him clean, and small enough to hinder pride. Credence sees the wood grain of the floor etched in his cheek, and the way his hair’s standing up in course, oily waves. He starts combing his fingers through the crests, trying to conform them to his skull, and is surprised when he finds something hard in his locks. He holds the lump in the flat of his palm and discovers it’s a piece of brick. That’s when he looks down and sees the front of his vest is coated in a fine layer of red clay dust. He flicks his eyes roof-wards. The rafters seem sound, but maybe they rained debris on his body as he slept? In the end, he decides there’s no use in trying to make sense of the mess. These sorts of mysteries come up from time to time, and he’s always found it best to put them from his mind.  

Credence never thinks to change. He picks the rubble from his hair piece by piece and brushes down his chest as he sifts his mind for the contents of his restless dreams. He comes away with nothing, but what he does remember are the hours before he fell asleep.

What exactly does his world contain, if he’s really rebuffed the witches once and for all?

Credence looks around at his handful of possessions, remembers his patchwork family. It all seems as inconsequential as himself, as evanescent. Just candle smoke, lingering in the still air as it spreads out, thinning into nothing.

Well, there’s still the knife. One solid thing.

Credence got it as a gift when he was seventeen. Ma handed him the shaving set with unchecked disdain, as though the burgeoning stubble on his chin was akin to the suspicious marks she inspects on the spotty limbs of her hungry urchins. The blade is ice on his throat, but he’s steady. He needs to be. It’s a delicate act, cutting away the evidence of his unruly body, slicing himself clean. Not a single pearl of blood colours the basin, though he’s often wondered what would happen if it did, if he slipped _just so_. But it’s all routine speculation, and almost suddenly, he’s smoothed out for the day to come.

He wonders if the ache in his belly is hunger, or the return of his faculties.

He wonders if Tina’s much older than him. He felt small in her presence, but not the smallness of a cowering child. It was like standing in the cool, relieving shadow of a mountain and marvelling at its unknowable heights.

He wonders if that’s how mothers are.

Credence finally makes his descent downstairs, and follows the stodgy scent of oatmeal towards the kitchen. Porridge was never his favourite, but he’s still disappointed when he finds the table bare. Chastity’s the only person present, and she’s wiping down a pan in the sink. Her ears perk up as he shuffles in, but she doesn’t turn.

“It’s already ten-thirty,” she chides, but without her customary fire. “You’ve missed breakfast. Ma’s already headed out to the Temperance meeting.” She twirls a basket from atop the icebox and sets it lightly by his seat, still not looking from her work. “She wanted to know where you were, so I told her you were feeling sick. Since you’re up now, you might as well do the shopping.”

Credence nods in puzzlement and obediently sets the basket in the crook of his arm. That’s twice she’s covered for him in a fistful of hours, but rather than taking comfort, he’s unnerved by her behaviour. He’s never known her goodwill to have longevity.

“The grocery money and the list are in the basket,” she says. Chastity’s sponge circles round and round the pan, meticulous in its rotary war against the grease. Credence turns on his heel to start his chore, but he’s stopped in the doorframe.

“And Credence?”

Just like that, the air in the kitchen transforms. That unseen miasmic balance of wills – it’s heavy now, thick with threat. Credence digs his nails in his palms.

“Yes?”

“I saw the magazines inside your book last night.” She keeps on scrubbing, harden now. “I won’t tell Ma about them… but only if you let me read them too.”

Chastity’s spine is ramrod straight, proudly daring Credence to defy her demand. Her knuckles are scorched red by the heat of the water and its tipples of bleach, the ends of her fingers rubbed raw, well on their way to ruggedness. For all the world, she’s a granite titan disguised in the trappings of a dainty blonde, and it’s easy to forget not every inch of her is sensible, that she keeps her fair share of forbidden, trite desires.

“Alright,” Credence concedes, trying to hide his bewildered smile.

Chastity turns her head around, then, and nods at him with the brusque formality of a Wall Street tycoon closing a million-dollar deal.

“I’ll hold you to it.”

Credence hums under his breath as he makes his way outside, waving to Modesty in the midst of her hopscotch as he disappears around the bend. He knows he’s just been the victim of blackmail, but still, it’s hard not to savour his sister’s confession to petty temptation. In fact, Credence finds his spirits lifting higher and higher as he passes one block, then the next. It’s as though the cavity leftover from his outburst the night before has opened a space for simple pleasures, things that never reached him from the bottom of despair. He wends his way towards Little Italy, peering in shop windows and admiring the iridescent ruffles of the pigeons on the curb. It’s no short stroll, but Ma won’t let them shop in Chinatown. She has a hard enough time giving business to Italians, never mind their Asian neighbours.

Halfway to his destination, Credence stops to admire the pyramid of soda bottles and jars of sweets in a drugstore window. He trails his eyes up and along the tower of rainbow-wrapped confections, until he spots the reflection of someone standing just behind his shoulder. Credence spins around with an indefinable jolt to the stomach, even while he knows he shouldn’t really be surprised.

He expects Mr. Graves to be furious – after all, the Devil doesn’t like to be denied. But the witch doesn’t seem mad, exactly. At any rate, he’s no more cross than usual. No, today Mr. Graves just seems… tired.

“What happened last night?”

Mr. Graves mops his hand through his quaff of jet-black hair. He’s standing much too close – the kind of close that makes the boy’s nerve-ends sizzle, that lets him smell the mineral sharpness of his aftershave. Credence tries backing up to get some air, but he bumps against the drugstore window. He’s caught, it seems, between a witch and a hard place. Mr. Graves sighs.

“I’m not going to force you to help me,” he says, voice low in an attempt to keep their conversation private. “We can call this whole thing quits, but something was very wrong last night, and I’d like to know what that something was.”

Credence bites his lip, as though the twinge of pain will inspire some sort of rational response. He found the strength to reject Mr. Graves just the night before, along with all the powers he enjoys. Yet even that denial had hardly overcome his constant itch of yearning. Credence thought his soul would be better off without these witches, without Tina and her boss, but there’s something vastly hollow about the thought of life reverting to its old, irrelevant routine. It was foolish to suppose last night would be the end, if only because in his heart of hearts, Credence knows he doesn’t really want it to be.

It’s exhausting, being indecisive.

“Why do you care if something _was_ wrong?”

The boy tries summoning a piece of his oldest sister’s flinty tone. His question comes out with a bit of spark, but the hunch of his shoulders and his death grip on the basket do nothing to convey self-assurance.

Mr. Graves spreads out his hands in placation, like he’s trying to calm a spooked animal.

“Because you’ve got reliable information,” he says, “and that’s scarce in my line of work. You’re in thick with the Anti-Magic Movement, but I don’t think you believe in it, not really. You’d just come from a Second Salemer meeting when I found you last night, and you were clearly upset. If that had something to do with your mother’s group, I want to know about it. If they’ve made any kind of move against wizards, I want to know.”

Credence can’t hold the witch’s gaze, so his eyes wither downwards to land on a patch of silver scarf. He tries to find something to say, he really does. The meeting wasn’t anything unusual. It’s not as though they made any plans. How does he explain he wasn’t upset with the members, but with himself?

Mr. Graves seems to take his silence as distrust. The man gives an irritated huff and taps his toe on the sidewalk.

“Okay, look,” he says, and he sounds like he’s crossing a line he’d hoped to never cross. “Tina’s gotten fond of you, and I can’t just go and leave you in the lurch when I have her away on assignment. I’ve got to check up on you from time to time. It’s only ethical.”

Credence’s eyes jolt up surprise. He can see the individual pinpricks of dark hair beneath the surface of Mr. Graves’ freshly-shaven face, the three frown lines scored across his brow. His jaw is tight, but his eyes are tempered by humiliation, and it softens all the sharpest angles of what he doubtlessly hopes is an implacable impression. Credence is taken aback that Mr. Graves feels an obligation towards his well-being, when it’s hard enough believing Tina wants to be his friend.  Still, he knows he ought to be defiant, or his remaining mote of resolve will surely crumble into nothing.

“Maybe I do believe it, though,” Credence says. “What they say – the Second Salemers.”

“Do you?”

There are people passing by them on the street, but Credence takes no heed. All he sees is Mr. Graves.

“You believe what your mother tells you, even after what she’s done to you?”

There’s no way of getting around that one. Credence has never received so much affection from an adult as he has from these heathen enchanters.

“You make it hard to believe,” he must admit. “You and Tina. You’re both too… nice.”

Mr. Graves laughs suddenly – a wry baritone music that fills up Credence’s chest in a painful-pleasant gust of sound.

“Nice!” cries the witch. “That’s a new one! But then again, saying I’m too nice to work for Satan isn’t much of a compliment.”

“You don’t, do you?” Credence asks point-blank, expending what feels like his last iota of courage. “Work for Satan?”

Mr. Graves laughs again, and claps his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“My boss can be a real piece of work, but she’s not Satan, Credence, I assure you!”

The man’s palm is heavy and warm on his shoulder. Credence can’t help but feel he’s somehow struck through his façade, that he’s feeling the heat from down in his secret, molten core. The boy finds himself starting to smile, and before he knows it, he’s laughing along too, and the fullness in his chest unspools in long ribbons of relief.

Just when his cheeks are starting to ache, there’s a loud rapping up by Credence’s ear, and he turns around to look up at the window. There’s an aproned clerk leaning between the sodas and the sweets, shooing them away with thumps on the glass and waves of his arms. Graves shoots the man a deadly glare. Every ounce of his fatigued frustration is back in full force, and the boy instantly misses his smile.

“Listen, Credence,” says the witch, as he finally takes a step back. “You can give me the cold shoulder if you want, and I’ll find another way to get my intel. You can decide I’m a servant of Satan and I’ll be on my merry way. Just let me get you some lunch while you’re making up your mind. You look like you’re about to faint.”

As if on cue, Credence’s stomach gives an angry groan. He blushes in embarrassment, only now noticing the way his legs feel weaker than when he set out from home. It can’t really hurt to go along with Mr. Graves, can it? After all, he holds the power to reject him in the end, once he’s firmer on his feet.

Credence gives the smallest nod, and Mr. Graves wastes no time in leading him away by the elbow.

“I know a place I think you’ll like.”

The busy crowds part around Mr. Graves as he strides down the road, and Credence is more than happy to float along in his wake. They take several right turns, then a left, and then he realizes the man’s intention: he’s leading them to the bistro he’d been spying the day they met, a ritzy expat from the Financial District called the _Cinq à Sept._ Credence starts shaking his head as they approach the patio.

“This is –” he stammers, “this is much too – I can’t afford –”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Mr. Graves, steering him through the front doors and towards the desk. “I’ll pay.”

Credence can’t help but look all around in amazement once they’re standing in the vestibule. Though the bistro isn’t overlarge, it’s dressed in creams, crystals and complex plaster mouldings. In the far corner is a grand piano, at which a musician is tapping out a jaunty tune, and the sunlight coming through the windows is falling on an artfully arranged jungle of tropical plants. The polished floor is home to just over twenty tables, each one draped in silk and flowers. The men are dressed nearly as well as Mr. Graves, and the women wear red lips and strings of brightly-coloured beads over au-courant gowns. The air is perfumed with a dozen delectable dishes, and rumbling with carefree chatter. He’s never been in such a fine place, and it makes his skin prickle beneath his ill-fitting coat.

“It’s a pretty good spot,” Mr. Graves ponders aloud, completely unperturbed. “For this side of the tracks, so to speak.”

The Maître D’ quickly spots their arrival and dashes up behind the desk.  “Ah, Mr. Graves!” he cries over the din of the diners, “how good to see you again!”

He beams at his auspicious guest, but then catches sight of Credence. He doesn’t sneer, or even curl his lip. It’s nothing so obvious. He simply stares, blankly, as though the boy’s existence has knocked the gears in his mind completely off their tracks. In that moment, Credence is painfully aware of his sullen ensemble – his mismatched vest and pants, the old-fashioned cut of his shirt, the quaint wicker basket held behind his back. What must it look like, for a man like Mr. Graves to arrive at a place like this, with nothing less than a street-preaching orphan?

“Table for two,” says Mr. Graves, in a not-quite-polite tone that brooks no room for refusal. “Something near the back.”

Shaking himself from his stupor, the Maître D’ guides them to a table nestled in one of the bay windows at the opposite end of the bistro. Credence holds his breath as they pass the other patrons. He’s sure they’ll catch his scent, like bloodhounds sniffing out a weakling rabbit. They’ll tear him to shreds for deigning to enter their gilded kennel. But by some miracle, everyone is too engrossed in their own conversations to take any notice, and Credence is too preoccupied with making himself small to tell if he’s turning heads.

When they arrive at their table, Mr. Graves tucks into his seat like he’s been here a thousand times and opens his napkin with a practiced flick. Credence follows suit, desperate to appear natural. The Maître D’ passes Mr. Graves a menu and starts ticking off the day’s recommendations, but when he’s finished with his first guest, he simply sets Credence’s menu on the table between them. The man looks distinctly uncomfortable, like he’s never been made to serve someone like Credence before.

“You can read it, no?” he asks, frowning down at the boy.

Credence flushes from head to toe. His tiny ounce of pride is thoroughly offended.

“I can read!”

“Of course he can read it!”

Credence and Mr. Graves answer as one, making the man jump.

“Very good, sirs!” says the Maître D’, adjusting his tie and making a hasty retreat. “Very good! Your waiter will be with you shortly!”

Graves glares at the man’s back until he disappears behind a corner, then rolls his eyes. Credence knows he shouldn’t be so easily placated, but with that small gesture, he swiftly finds his pride repaired. He hides a smile behind his hand.

The moment is instantly ruined, however, when Credence takes a look inside his menu. Despite claiming he could read just a moment before, he can’t make heads nor tails of the majority of dishes. He squints at phrases like ‘aiguillette,’ ‘au gratin’ and ‘Apollinaris white rock,’ trying to decipher their meanings, but there are neither descriptions nor illustrations to help. Even worse than the diction are the prices. The chunk of change assigned to an appetizer alone could feed all four of his family members for a full day – breakfast, lunch _and_ dinner.

“I’m ready to order,” says Mr. Graves, setting down his menu. “What do you think you’d like?”

Credence looks sheepishly at the napkin in his lap.

“I don’t… I don’t really know what any of this is…”

The boy expects a snide remark. Instead, Mr. Graves simply scans the list of meals.

“The cream of celery is good,” he suggests. “I think you’ll like it. The potatoes in Hollandaise are a specialty.”

Credence quickly agrees, even though he has no idea what Hollandaise is supposed to be.

A moment later, a waiter arrives to take their orders, deposit a bread basket and remove their menus. Credence had hoped he could keep his menu as a sort of rampart between himself and his lunch-mate, but now he’s been deprived of even the flimsiest of defenses. He’ll be expected to talk, no doubt. Maybe even look across the table.

“What do you like to read?” the witch asks. He pours them both water from the pitcher in the centre of the table. “I haven’t read many non-magical books, mind you, but I’ve read a few.”

It’s a disarmingly casual question – nothing like the interrogation Credence was expecting.

The young man opens his mouth and almost responds with ‘the Bible,’ but he stops himself in time. He doesn’t think that’s the sort of book Mr. Graves means. Besides, he doesn’t exactly _like_ reading the Good Book. Holy as it is, and blasphemous at it may be to admit, it’s really rather dry.

“Sometimes,” he says, “I get to go to the library and read novels.”

As far as Ma’s aware, he keeps himself cooped up in the religious section.

“What kinds of novels?” Mr. Graves asks, as he slices through a roll, unleashing a fragrant puff of steam.

Credence would be mortified to admit he’s fond of romance, but maybe it’s safe to mention a widely respected title.

“I really like _Jane Eyre,_ ” he says. _“_ I’ve read it four times.”

Mr. Graves hums in thought as he butters his bread. “I’ve read that one, a long time ago now. I have to admit, I never saw the appeal. Of Mr. Rochester, I mean.”

Credence can’t help but feel a stab of betrayal at this mild slander against his favourite book. He’s spent countless hours holding Jane’s hand as she endured her prison of a childhood home, and felt the cold drafts of Thornfield on his very skin. The library’s copy bears little pockmarks from where his fingers pressed deep in the sallow paper on soupy summer nights.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“Rochester keeps too much close to the vest,” Mr. Graves explains. “He lies to Jane about his life, about who he truly is. Jane wants to be free, but Rochester’s the type to put people in cages, despite all his talk of love.”

Credence frowns, though he’s trying not to show how affected he is by the other’s opinions.

“I don’t think Jane feels like she’s in a cage, in the end,” he quietly counters. “Mr. Rochester’s a bit overbearing, yes. But after losing everything, and everyone, Mr. Rochester isn’t a cage. He’s a home.”

Graves takes a sip of water and gives a small smirk over the edge of his glass.

“Well, maybe you’re right,” he says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve read the thing, after all. And then, home is just a cage we enjoy, is it not?”

Before Credence can even begin to think how to answer, the waiter appears with their food.

The soup is served in a fine china bowl, and Hollandaise ends up being some sort of creamy, yellow sauce. Credence mutters a quiet prayer of thanks before picking up his silver spoon, but Mr. Graves has his own invocations to mysterious powers to make. The young man watches in fascination and mild alarm as he discreetly flicks the end of his wand from his pocket and casts a duo of spells over the table. Immediately, the loudness of the bistro recedes to a muffled hum, and a ripple of air encircles them before dissipating.

“So no one can overhear us,” the witch explains. Credence’s eyes have grow wide at this modest display of magic, and Mr. Graves blows a silent laugh through his nose. He pushes aside the rosemary sprig atop his lamb chops and starts carving the meat into bite-sized morsels. “Now,” he says, “am I going to hear anything about last night’s meeting? You don’t want to say what upset you – fine. At least tell me if the Second Salemers have been up to anything I should know about.”

Credence slowly works through a slice of potato as he decides what to tell the man. The dish is sumptuous and silky, unlike anything he’s ever tasted. He knows it will follow him through every meal of overcooked oats and burnt sausage for the rest of his days. When he’s finally finished, he relates Miss Fox’s tale about the bird outside her window, and the calls for action from the Mallemort men. There isn’t much to report, seeing as Credence hadn’t really been conscious for most of the meeting.

Mr. Graves gives a grimace. “Transforming in front of witnesses… I’ll have to check the registry,” he mutters, as though he’s making any sense to Credence. “It’s no surprise the Second Salemers are growing restless. I’m going to make damn sure not a single drop of magical blood is spilled by their hands.” He takes another sip of water, but glowers at the glass as he sets it down. “Blast this prohibition. I could go for a Merlot about now.”

They sit without speaking as they eat, and it’s a semi-comfortable silence, much to the boy’s surprise. He’s still intimidated by his cagey companion, but he finds his frazzled nerves have been soothed by copious amounts of butterfat, as well as the unexpected ease of conversation. It’s almost like having lunch with an ordinary man.

When Credence is halfway to the bottom of his soup, Graves breaks the silence, saying:

“Now we’re done with your report, I suppose there’s some things you’d like to ask _me_. I’d be surprised if you didn’t have any questions about magic. Technically I’m supposed to keep things under wraps, but this is sort of a special situation. Since your mother was a witch, I think you’re entitled to a fair exchange of information.”

Credence swallows his spoonful of soup, and his heart begins to race. He has about a million questions, and they all tumble over themselves in his restless mind as he tries to sleep at night.

“Would you tell me about your world?” he asks. He’s almost afraid Mr. Graves will refuse, even though he’s the one that offered. “Tina says… there’s a kind of New York within New York, a city normal people can’t see.”

“Well…” Mr. Graves spears a carrot, then dredges it in gravy. “There’s what we call the Sixth Borough, to start.”

“The Sixth Borough?”

The older man nods. “It overlaps with Manhattan and the Bronx – straddles the border, more or less. It’s really just a concentrated area of witches and wizards. But we’re all over the city, too, here and there. There are buildings that look like nothing special on the outside, but when you enter, they change into wizarding banks, offices, mansions… Most of our commercial centre is in the subway, though.”

Credence cocks his head in confusion. He’s taken the train countless times before, and never once caught sight of anything remotely magical.

Mr. Graves explains: “You have your subway system, don’t you? Well, we have our own hidden tunnels, full of shops, streetlights, parks... City streets beneath city streets.”

Credence’s head is spinning, overfull with fresh imaginings and about a hundred new questions. It’s so fantastic, and it should seem impossible, but the world’s wonders seem limitless in this moment, sitting here with Mr. Graves.

“It’s the most beautiful at Christmas time,” he continues. Mr. Graves seems to enjoy this, the excitement in the other’s eyes. “All the tunnels are lined with decorated wreaths, and the ceiling is coated in tinsel streamers. We put up an enormous Christmas tree, and all the candles on the boughs reflect on the subway tiles, so the glow is everywhere and all around. Little lead-glass birds fly above the crowds, chirping Christmas carols.”

Credence allows the witch to paint the image in his mind’s eye, and his heart aches a little at the perfect scene. He’ll never in his life hear the glass songbirds, or see the blazing evergreen. As Mr. Graves pointed out the first time they met, he inherited nothing from his parents, not even their powers.

Credence tries to put the thought aside with another sip of soup, and something occurs to him.

“Do witches have Christmas?” he asks, amazed. “Can witches _be_ Christian?”

Mr. Graves gives a small nod. “Most are,” he says, “at least in America.” He starts picking at a leftover bone with his fork, apparently unenthused by the topic. “There’ve been Christian wizards as long as there’s been Christianity, but the type practiced by most people looks a little different from what you’re used to. They use their own translation of the Bible, what they call the Aedus Version, or the Book of Flame. Conveniently, it doesn’t condemn the practice of witchcraft. And it more or less implies that Jesus is a wizard.”

Credence inhales a mouthful of soup. He hacks into his napkin for a long moment, grateful for the muffling spell cast over the table. Mr. Graves looks caught between concern and amusement.

“I’m sorry,” he says, once the boy’s regained his breath. Credence is red in the face, but more because of embarrassment than a lack of air. “I’ve offended your religious sensibilities.”

Somehow, this apology seems more ridiculous than anything Mr. Graves has said all day. Credence can’t help but stare at the witch in bafflement. “Mr. Graves,” he says, “you already did that a long, long time ago!”

Mr. Graves blinks in surprise. Once, twice. Then he breaks into a rumbling laugh. And really, Credence thinks it must be infectious, because the boy starts laughing too.

“That’s twice I’ve made you laugh today,” the witch says, sounding a bit triumphant as his chuckles peter out. “I’m going to make Tina jealous.”

Credence goes even redder in the face. There’s nothing he could say in response that would be in any way coherent, so he doubles back to the previous topic.

“Are you Christian, Mr. Graves?” he asks, as casually as he can.

The man’s face falls. Credence instantly hates himself for asking. This question is too personal, too prying. He’s proved himself to be everything Mr. Graves must think he is – an annoying evangelical.

The man takes a moment to collect his thoughts, but eventually he answers. “I’m an atheist,” he admits. “Religion and I had a falling out when I was a kid.”

‘ _An atheist!_ ’

Credence doesn’t think he’s ever seen one in real life. Ma would be furious if he knew he was speaking with an unbeliever. But then again, Mr. Graves’ atheism would be the least of her worries.

“What happened?” the young man asks, cautiously curious.

Mr. Graves looks glumly at his cup. Credence wonders if he could turn the water into wine.

“Honestly?” he says, “I got tired of being told I was sinful, just for being myself. And once I stopped believing in sin, I stopped believing in hell. And from there, all the rest just fell apart. I thought something terrible would happen if I stopped believing. One night I decided not to pray, and you know what? I was fine. And I’ve been fine ever since.”

Credence frowns. He’s unsettled, even more so than by Mr. Graves’ dislike of _Jane Eyre_. He can’t imagine a life that isn’t dogged by fear of the fiery pit. It’s a part of himself, as much as his urge to breath. There is no Credence outside of pain.

“You remind me a bit of myself, actually.”

Credence looks up from the twisted napkin in his lap, up at Mr. Graves. The man’s wearing a new expression, one he’s never seen before. It’s that uncertainty from the night behind the church, but more tender, somehow. More exposed. He’s afraid.

“You remind me a bit of myself, when I was young.”

And with that, the witch is suddenly intent on finishing his food. The conversation is clearly over. Credence takes the opportunity to polish off his meal, all the while flailing in his jumble of emotions. He alternates between discreetly dropping rolls in his basket and stealing glances at the man across the table. It seems ludicrous, being compared to someone handsome, powerful, and evidently rich. Credence feels his insides fizz like he’s had a sip of seltzer. He feels hopeful – not that Mr. Graves’ achievements might be in his grasp, but that the distance between this mysterious man and himself isn’t quite as vast as he believed.

It’s then that the waiter arrives and offers them dessert. Credence politely declines, claiming he’s already full, but really, he’s worried about the steep bill he’s helped to rack up for the witch. When the cheque does arrive, Mr. Graves hands over a hefty wad of bills without so much as a twinge of remorse, and Credence stammers out a storm of reverent thank-you’s. They breeze back through the restaurant and onto the patio, pointedly ignoring the well-wishes of the Maître D’. The pair loiter by the door as Mr. Graves fishes out his pocket watch – a polished, silver pendent with blue enamel numbers.

“My break’s about up,” he says. “I’ve got to head back to the office. Did you make up your mind?”

And really, Credence made up his mind all that time ago in the alley. He doesn’t think he could choose any other way, no matter how hard he tries.

“When can I see you again?”

Mr. Graves doesn’t smile, but there’s a glimmer in his eyes.

“Maybe in a month’s time. You won’t be too late getting home, will you?”

Home?

_The groceries!_

Credence looks down in dismay at the basket in his hands.

“I was supposed to do the shopping!” he says. “I’ll be out all afternoon…”

“Here,” says Mr. Graves. He plucks the list from the basket and gives it a read, deigning not to comment on the purloined dinner rolls it’s wedged between. “Let’s see what I can do…”

He crowds around Credence to shield the basket from any passers-by, then reaches inside. The witch taps the contents one by one, whispering strange words as he goes. Without even the use of his wand, the buns transform before their eyes. Now there’s a trio of apples, a paper package of bacon, a small sack of flour…

“There we are,” the witch mutters, much too casual for someone who just performed a miracle. “Now you’ll be right on time.”

Credence doesn’t want Mr. Graves to pull away, but of course he does.

The witch bows his head in a small farewell, his silver scarf waving in the slight breeze. “Until next time,” he says, and much too suddenly, Mr. Graves is turning on his heel and walking away. Credence watches him go, then watches the place where he disappears around the bend.

There _will_ be a next time, Credence knows. The springtime sun is warm against his cheek, and the night’s dark terrors are far from his thoughts.

There will be so many next times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is a creation of J. K. Rowling, David Yates, Warner Bros. Pictures and Heyday Films. I claim no rights to the original content. This story wasn't written for profit, but for my own amusement (and perhaps yours).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating, archive warnings and tags are subject to change as the story progresses.
> 
> The specific content warnings for this chapter are: Brief non-consensual sexual touch, homophobia, internalized homophobia, implied parental physical abuse, minor accidental injury and allusion to murder of sex workers.

It isn’t long before she comes to collect.

Four days have passed since Credence shared lunch with Mr. Graves. He’s just begun getting ready for bed after a long day of scrubbing floors when he hears the soft sigh of his bedroom door swing open. When he turns around, Chastity is standing in the threshold in her lily-pale chemise, feet bare and hands clasped behind her back. A warden making her surprise inspection.

“Credence, may I borrow your soap?” she asks a little loudly, lest Ma is listening from down the hall. “I ran out.” She stares pointedly at _Bible Stories for Children,_ tucked snugly amidst the notebooks on his tiny desk.

To be completely honest, Credence had forgotten all about Aleister’s magazines. He’d been preoccupied with memories of his afternoon with Tina’s boss, which, despite his best attempts to focus on his daily work, have purloined all his waking moments.

Credence tugs out the old tome and flips it open to reveal its hidden treasures. In a flash of nimble fingers, Chastity snatches up the one on top. She rolls it in a tight tube, then slips it up her sleeve with expertise. Finally, she steals the soap off the washstand.

“Thanks, Credence!” she says, eyes bubbling with a brew of adrenaline and anticipation. She turns around to dash back to her room with the spoils of her blackmail, gone as quickly as she came.

Credence is left alone with the second magazine laid across his palms. His curiosity can’t help but be piqued by his churchmate’s unexpected gift, now it’s staring him in the face. It doesn’t take much deliberation before he follows his sister’s lead with some late-night reading, despite the fact he’s exhausted from a hard day’s work. He’s spent all of half a week fantasizing about a secret meeting with a witch – half a week scarcely concerned by their ungodly acquaintance. This indulgence seems small by compare.

Credence makes sure the door is really, fully shut, then stuffs a blanket between its bottom and the floorboards to hide the lamplight. A hanky makes quick work of the keyhole. He lays the magazine on the covers as gently as a holy relic, then strips down to nothing but his union suit, which doubles as warm-weather pyjamas. Credence settles on his stomach, head in hand. His insides flutter with excitement.

This issue of _Movie Weekly Magazine_ doesn’t feature the face of a Hollywood bombshell, like his sister’s had. It bears a drawing of a handsome young man. His slicked-back hair and rounded jaw are described in rough pastel passes. Only his eyes are finely rendered – demure and liquid black, calmly inviting. The text at the bottom of the image informs Credence that this issue is two years old, and that he’s staring at none other than Rudolph Valentino. Of course, Credence knows the name. He’s even plastered leaflets beside posters for _The Sheik_. Still, all he’s ever known about the man is his apparent cinematic pedigree. He’s never seen a Valentino film, or had the chance to study his likeness.

Credence takes his time admiring the artwork. When at last he looks away, he starts flipping through the pages one by one. There are photos everywhere, and they’re tiny, delicious glimpses into the pantheon of stories offered at the cinema. There’s a retinue of black-and-white coquettes, staring out through moody clouds of grey mascara and curl upon curl upon curl. In equal number are men in jet tuxedos, wrapped in the wisps from their slender cigarettes and looking forlornly into space. What draws Credence’s attention, though, is the article about the cover-boy, exactly in the middle of the magazine. The pages here are bent and warped, not unlike his favourite chapters from _Jane Eyre_. Valentino takes up nearly the entire page, already yellowed from the cheapness of the paper. He’s the image of Greek heroism – all thick arms and bulging chest, hardly contained within his sleeveless cotton shirt, every pleasing curve cupped in silky shadow. The photo ends at the waist, but it begs the question whether the rest of him is just as finely crafted – whether his thighs are hard and round, whether his calves are carved in marble sweeps…

Credence feels a familiar sensation begin to grow inside his drawers. He clenches his teeth. Paying any attention to his body’s demands usually ends with an empty feeling in his gut and red fingerprints around his throat. The consequence of such extravagance always outweighs the reward. He quickly flips the page and tries to focus on the next story, determined to avoid any more crude reactions. Credence ponders gossip columns about the love lives of leading ladies, mulls over advice on the proper shade of rouge, but then he spots an ad for men’s underwear.

Two athletic blonds stand against a white backdrop. Their tight-clinging undershirts are tucked into pairs of fashionable boxer shorts. One is salmon pink, the other springtime green. Their woolen socks are held up by thin, leather garters bound tight below their knees. Credence wonders why two full-grown men would be undressed in such close quarters. The blankness of the background lets him extrapolate. Perhaps they’re alone in a locker room, or maybe a bedroom with a mattress that never creaks. The ample folds of their boxers hide any untoward details of what lies below, but the fabric looks soft, touchable. Easy to slip down your hips, let fall around your ankles…

Credence is moving against the bed, now, all the sudden swept up and helpless. He’s just needy enough to float over his self-disgust, his mind wholly occupied by want and leaving no room for revulsion. He rocks his hips back and forth in small, hasty thrusts, curling his toes in the time-worn quilt. He flips back to Valentino. His fantasies become more daring as he drives himself closer to climax. The boy imagines burying his face in the warm crook of the stranger’s neck, smelling his skin, the sweet-herbal scent of shampoo. Being pinned against the mattress by robust arms, an unrelenting weight. Kissing – a vague, supple force against his mouth. He can’t quite summon what it feels like, but he knows he wants it, more than anything.

It doesn’t take much. Credence tumbles over the edge of his pleasure in a sudden drop, messy and breathless. He makes sure to eke out the last throbs of desire by grinding down on his sensitized cock, his clammy hands crinkling the edges of the magazine. When his body settles down into a pleasant state of numb, Credence rolls himself over to inspect the damp spot he feels on the front of his union suit. The white cotton is dark around his still-swollen prick. He’ll have to scrub it out in the morning, along with the memories of his brief transgression. As it is, he’s overcome by fatigue. Credence is already dozing away, far beyond the concerns of unholy desire. The boy slips the magazine beneath his pillow, then fumbles into place below the covers. He’s warm and sated, not unlike how he felt after taking lunch with Mr. Graves. His hunger is satisfied, though he’s sure the food was far from wholesome.

Credence is just about to drop away completely when it strikes him – he forgot to pray! He was just about to, before Chastity arrived.

Credence’s body begs to stay in bed, but falling asleep without prayer is one too many sins than he can bare tonight. With immense chagrin, Credence shunts himself from the covers, then kneels on the cold floor in front of his washstand, submitting himself to the impassive gaze of his crucifix.

He tries to summon the words he’s said a million times, but they stall in the sluggish space between his brain and lips.

“Our Father who… art… in heaven. Heaven. Hallowed. Hallowed… be Thy name…”

Credence sees the glint of the lamplight on the polished wood of the Holy Cross. He sees his own form in the mirror just below, his soul and clothing stained. Red scars rope around his shoulders, as though to hold him in, hold him down. They’ve failed. At every moment of weakness, he busts free, overflowing with unauthorized happiness and want.

“I’m a wretch,” he says aloud. His own kind of prayer. “Why can’t I escape this? No matter how hard I try? Why… can’t you save me? Why won’t you save me?”

God doesn’t reply.

Credence wonders if the reason his prayers are never answered is because he’s beyond the help of God. And if he’s doomed to be this _thing_ , a creature undeserving of the Lord’s love, then what’s the point of praying?

He remembers what Mr. Graves told him, about deciding not to pray. But completely casting out the Holy Father isn’t so simple. Credence wants to be loved by God, to have his love returned. His religion tells him he’s worthy of the fiery pit, but it’s also told him to be kind to others, to be gracious to the weak, and to relieve the suffering of those in need. Would turning away from God mean turning away from these things too? These precious flecks of gold in his otherwise vulgar soul?

These questions, too, are unanswered. Maybe the truth will come with the morning, or maybe it won’t come at all. Either way, Credence can’t keep his eyes open another moment. He lets them fall closed and tucks his chin against his chest.

“Amen,” he says, and then drags himself to bed. In the dizzy half-dreams before complete slumber, Credence imagines those same arms from before holding him close beneath the blankets. Soft strokes through his hair, then sweet nothings that sound like a lullaby.

When morning comes, the world isn’t over. Credence awakens to a dull weight pressed against his chest, but his shame is lighter than he recalls from all the times before. He isn’t quite as sorry as he’d thought he’d be, just like he isn’t quite so sorry for seeing Mr. Graves, and he wonders if this is just another step on his fall from grace. Further proof he can’t be saved.

The boy takes breakfast with the rest of the Barebones. All the while, he’s paranoid something will signal to Ma what he’s done. His hands feel dirty, haunted by the clamminess from the night before. But Ma can’t tell he’s been a bad boy. In fact, she’s in strangely good spirits. She heads out bright and early for another Temperance meeting without even a single harsh remark flung his way, a bag of freshly-printed pamphlets slung over an arm. The children are left to their studies and chores, slightly disconcerted by the lack of vitriol.

It looks to be an uneventful day. That is, until Modesty comes hopping up the stairs and into her brother’s room. He looks up from his arithmetic, and she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“Someone’s here to see you!”

Modesty flashes a conspiratorial smile, and the boy’s heart skips a beat. He rushes from his room and onto the landing to look out over the handrail. But it isn’t Mr. Graves with his wry smirk and fine-cut suit, or even Tina with a pastry bag in hand. It’s only Aleister Mallemort, beaming up at him from the middle of the meeting room.

“Well now, Credence!” he booms. His voice echoes round and round the church. “Eager to see me, then?”

The boy’s face falls, and he hopes Aleister is too far away to see. It would be rude to let on just how completely crushed he feels.

Credence doesn’t respond to Aleister’s cocky remark, but descends the stairs at a sluggish pace. Modesty follows, just as chipper as before.

Chastity is sitting at the table in the middle of the hall, building a tower of leaflets. She sets down her tin of printers’ ink with a loud clunk. Credence knows by the sound alone that Modesty’s let him in unbidden.

“Aleister!” she says, swivelling in her chair to face to the young man, her voice sugar-sweet. “It’s unlike you to visit us outside of meetings. What do we owe the unexpected pleasure?”

Aleister’s million-watt smile doesn’t falter. He doesn’t so much as glance her way.

“Since Maggie finished the last book,” he says, “I thought I might see if Credence will lend me another.”

It’s politely put, but clearly not a question. Chastity, Modesty and Aleister all look at Credence, waiting for his reply. Credence shrinks beneath the combined force of their stares. He hides his hands in the pockets of his pants.

“Sure, I have lots. I can get you one.”

“Oh, that’s alright. I can come and look.”

Credence swallows. Aleister just keeps on beaming.

“A-alright.”

So, sharing one last awkward glance with his sisters, Credence starts back up the stairs to lead Aleister to his bedroom.

He’s still not sure what to make of the man, truth be told. A part of him, that same part that hoped he’d see Mr. Graves, quavers at his bloodlust for the city’s hidden magic. Another reckons he should be grateful for his gifts and attention.

When they reach their destination, Aleister makes a point of shutting the door. It makes a sharp _click!_ in Credence’s ears, and unsettles something equally sharp in the pit of his stomach, something that feels like a warning. The room’s altogether too small for two young men, and Credence feels the closeness prickle on the surface of his skin.

“Let’s see here…”

Aleister makes a bee-line for the books on the desk, bending at the waist to read their spines. He ruminates for awhile, then suddenly yanks one from the line.

“Aha! This’ll do!”

He hunkers down on the bed and proceeds to rifle through _100 Essential Hymns for the Protestant Family._

Credence stands uneasily in the space between the bed and the door. No one’s ever been in his room besides Ma and the girls. No one. He shoves his hands deeper inside his pockets to keep them from twitching.

“Why don’t you come down here with me?” Aleister asks. He doesn’t look up from sifting through the index, but gestures with a hand for Credence to sit by his side.

Credence does as he’s told. The space between Aleister and the footboard is hardly wide enough to hold him. Their bodies almost brush, but Credence keeps his legs tightly closed to avert such a situation, recalling the last time they nearly knocked knees. Aleister reeks of pomade, and Credence thinks his fiery freckles might burn holes right through his skin if he gets too close, right to the core of him.

Aleister keeps on reading for awhile. Then, he spots something peeking from beneath the pillow. Despite having made the bed this morning, Credence completely forgot to stash away the magazine. Aleister’s weight disturbed its placement, and now it’s spilling out over the edge of the mattress, rather more rumpled than when it was given away.

Aleister smirks. His crooked canines glint in the afternoon light, and it makes Credence remember the feral leer of his mouth when he’d wished murder on the witches of New York.

“I see you’re enjoying my gift,” he says. He puts the book aside, and now all his attention is on the other boy. “You ever tried sneaking out to see a picture, Credence?”

Credence shakes his head.

“We could go together,” says Aleister, and again, it’s not a question. He sets his heavy paw on the other’s thigh. Credence jumps in fright.

“Don’t worry,” Mallemort coos. Credence shakes his leg, but Aleister only presses down hard, slides his palm up his leg. “It’s dark in the cinema, you know. We’ll never be seen.”

Just then, there’s a rap at the door, followed immediately by another uninvited guest.

Credence doesn’t think he’s ever been so happy to see Chastity in all his life.

There she stands, Athena surveying the battle, all rolling storm clouds and incoming gales. Her smile is as tight as the fist clutched in the hem of her apron. She bows her head in a sketch of feminine grace.

“Tea’s ready, boys,” she chimes. “Don’t let it get cold.”

Aleister flings his hand away and launches to his feet. Credence simply crushes his legs even closer, too shocked to respond. It takes another icy smile before he manages to push up off the bed. His mind is racing. He’d never known, never guessed. Credence supposed the only other men like himself were the ones who prowled the parks at night, men he’d only heard about but never really seen.

Chastity stands to the side of the door until they amble through, then marches them both to the kitchen like felons to the chopping block. Modesty is already at her spot at the table with a waiting cup and saucer, looking perplexed and slightly afraid. Chastity takes their mother’s chair, then directs Credence to her left and Aleister to the right, so she’s perfectly between them.

“What kind of hostess would I be if I didn’t offer our guest some tea?” she simpers. “You came all this way for Credence. You must be thirsty.”

The china set is old. Ma once said it belonged to her mother, one rare scrap of intel she’s let slip about her past. It must be the finest thing in the church. Too fine, in fact, for Ma’s tastes, and so it’s strictly reserved for entertaining guests. The dishes are creamy white, and embellished with tangled loops of periwinkle vines.

The girl starts with Aleister’s cup, as decorum demands. Mallemort is making no attempt to hide his annoyance. His face is scrunched up like a deflated, red balloon. Credence’s gaze is firmly fixed on his lap.

“Got any sugar?”

Aleister glowers at the lavish display.

“Our Ma doesn’t approve of sweets,” Chastity responds.

The boy scoffs. “Cream, then?”

“Only milk, Mr. Mallemort.”

“Fine, then. That’s fine.”

Chastity starts to pour.

“Actually,” says Aleister, just as she’s setting down the jug. “Never mind. I don’t think I want milk after all.”

Chastity freezes with her hand around the milk. Her lips are turned up in a pantomime of politesse, but her eyes are dark and dead. Credence and Modesty hold their breaths.

“A man ought to be decisive,” the eldest Barebone girl replies. “But no matter.” She pours the milk back in its tiny jug, then whips to the left. “Credence,” she says, pushing the cup into his hands, “won’t you be a dear and rinse this out for Mr. Mallemort?”

Credence fumbles to comply. He hunches around his sister and squeezes past Aleister to reach the sink. He’s grateful for the task, this chance to have his back to the rising hurricane. The tap gurgles to life and belches frigid water over his hands. They shake around the slippery surface of the cup. Just last night he’d dreamt of warm palms on his skin. A movie star took the place of real flesh and blood, just a useful face for a disembodied wish. But Credence would rather take a man who’s make-believe to Aleister Mallemort, of that he’s sure.

More importantly, though, what must his sister think? Did she _see?_ And does she _know?_

“Look,” says Aleister, “you can go around playing queen of the castle all you want, but I’m not afraid of you.” Credence hears the creak of wood, like he’s leaning smugly in his seat. “Miss Chastity Barebone, sticking up her nose at everyone. Thinks she’s a saint, but she’s really just a meddler and a creep. You’ll never get a man, sweetheart, not in a million years.”

Modesty squeaks in horror. Credence nearly bites his tongue.

Chastity wastes no time with her come-back.  

“Well, I can assure you, Mr. Mallemort,” she snaps, “neither will _you!_ ”

_Smash!_

Credence looks down, and the corpse of the dainty cup is lying shattered at the bottom of the sink.

“Credence!” cries Modesty, dashing to his side. “What did you _do?_ ”

He blinks once, twice.

“I – I didn’t mean to!” he stammers, hardly comprehending what’s happened. “It just – it just fell from my hand!”

They all share an awful stretch of silence, broken only by the clunking of the tap. Chastity’s the first to regain her wits.

“I’ll get Mr. Mallemort another,” she says, and there’s a tremor in her voice. The girl tows Credence back to his chair, where he sags into a puddle of deepening despair. They all get served, and Credence takes distraught and distracted sips of scalding tea. In his mind’s eye, his bones are already snapping like china twigs, reduced to fistfuls of jagged shards. When he looks up from his drink, it’s to find Aleister lost in the curlicue pattern of his plate, dead-pale and glassy-eyed.

Somehow, they all finish their tea, the three oldest at the table distracted by their respective miseries, the youngest trying to piece together how everything went so horribly wrong.

Aleister gives Modesty and Credence a brusque nod as he rises to his feet. His gaze lingers on Credence, as though looking for confirmation that what his sister said is true, that’s he’s really unwanted. Credence can’t think of what to do, and quickly looks away.

“I’ll see you at the rally,” says Aleister, and then he skulks from the kitchen and out the front door, not even bothering with the pretense of taking Maggie’s book.

As soon as they’re sure he’s gone, Chasity flies from her chair and into a frenzy. She gathers up the fragments of china at the bottom of the sink and puts them in her pocket. Next, she starts sudsing the other cups with a furious passion, as though soap and elbow grease alone will save her from the ugly anger rearing up inside.

“This is all I need!” she shrieks, back bent over the sink. “She’ll be livid! At least that scumbag Mallemort won’t be making any more ‘social calls.’”

She moves to clean Credence’s cup, and it’s only when she holds it to the light that Credence sees red smears across the ivy. He looks down through bleary eyes, and his fingertips have been cut by the china smithereens. The shallow wounds are weeping blood over his knuckles and down around his wrist. Credence yanks out his hankie and stuffs his hands inside. Neither girl seems to notice, too preoccupied with panic.

The middle sibling gives a vicious smirk. “It doesn’t matter what Aleister said,” she grouses, drying the teapot with a rag. “It doesn’t matter if men like me. I’ll never marry, anyway. She’ll never let me go that easy. She’ll never let _any_ of us go.”

There’s another solemn silence. Credence tries to hold back his voice, he really does, but the tightness in his throat is getting worse and worse. At last, a strangled noise breaks through, only confirming once again that he’s the weakest. He’s the eldest boy, and the fastest to fold.

Modesty hears his distress and comes to stand by his side. The boy’s chest is working in and out, drumming to the beat of the sobs building behind his ribs. She adds her own hankie to the makeshift bandage on his hands.

“Everything will be alright,” she says sincerely, like it’s a promise she can keep. “We’ll tell Ma that Aleister broke the cup.”

“We’ll do no such thing!”

Chastity lowers the last saucer into its case and layers it with tissue, like a mother tucking her child into bed. She looks up at Credence’s blood-soaked fingers, his tear-streaked face.

“This is for your own good.”

She scoops the china pieces from her pocket and empties the evidence onto the table.

Credence never had any doubt he’d be taking the blame, but it catches Modesty by surprise. She thumps her fist on the back of his chair. The shards rattle.

“Why?” she screams. “Why can’t you ever help us?”

“I _am_ helping you!” Chastity shouts back. Her voice is high and screeching, like a canary caught in its death throes. “How will you ever learn to control yourselves if I let you lie and cheat? If I let you _fraternize_ right under my nose?”

Modesty narrows her eyes to slits, and even though she’s enraged on his behalf, it takes Credence aback. Modesty’s been angry before, sure. Resentful. But he’s never seen her _hate_.

She looks just like Ma.

“Aleister’s right!”

She’s screaming, with every ounce of breath.

“He’s completely right about you! No one could ever, ever love you!”

Modesty races from the kitchen and up the wooden steps. They watch her sprint from sight, then hear the slam of her bedroom door. It shakes the whole church, and little bits of ceiling come rain down, dusting their heads.

Credence can’t see his elder sister’s face. Can’t what she’s feeling, only her tense silhouette against the light in the doorway. The shake of her shoulders in her drab, woolen dress. He thinks she’ll say something, anything, but she just walks away into the meeting hall. There’s the clank of metal as she untwists her tin of ink, the shuffle of paper. The Lord’s good work will make her forget herself, forget her sister, forget her brother, forget this whole damn house.

It’s over as suddenly as it began. Credence is deserted to his fate. He knows there’s nothing to be done but sit in his chair and await Ma’s return. He considers dashing out the back door, but where would he go? If only he knew how to find Tina. Then again, he could never seek out her help, couldn’t risk asking too much, for fear of being without her, and without magic, once again and forever. And Credence is sure that if he ran away, he’d become little more than a ghost amidst all the other city drifters, another boy in the squalid backroom of a speakeasy. A sludgy hunk of who-knows-what dragged from the Hudson and forgotten altogether.

It seems to him that there’s Ma, and there’s death, and few things in-between.

Credence spends the proceeding moments getting ready. He tries to sieve his soul from the lumps of flesh that make up his person, to suspend it high out of reach from anyone’s hand. He hears the slow and steady _thump, thump!_ of the letterpress in the next room, and tries to match his heartbeat, a methodical chug of fluids in an impervious robot hull.

He’s not sure how much time passes before the church door creaks open, and he hears the _clack-clack-clack_ of his mother’s heels. The press stops. Voices.

“Welcome back, Ma. How was the meeting with the WCTU?”

Something’s tossed on the table. Ma’s bag. It’s still heavy with pamphlets.

“I was laughed at. They laughed at me.”

She’s so quiet, barely heard above the whistling of the breeze through the old shingles.

“There are many evils in this city, not just the drink. They don’t understand. But they will. They will.”

So certain. Like she could stand alone against all the doubter in New York.

“Ma, we had a guest today…”

He’s holding his breath, waiting. He can’t breathe, can’t breathe.

“Credence…”

And she’s here at last, to relieve him, to never let him go. Ma’s standing over his shoulder. She looks down at the fragments of her secret past, then touches them lightly with her soft, soft hand. She runs a finger down the curved spine of the handle, slowly, so slow.

“You’ve been a bad boy, Credence. Such a bad boy.”

“I didn’t mean to… Please, Ma…”

But she doesn’t say a word, just waits for him to rise. And he does, because he must, and he follows his mother up the stairs, back to his room.

When they reach their destination, Ma makes a point of shutting the door. It makes a sharp _click!_ in Credence’s ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It looks like I only have time to write when I'm on holiday, so the next update will likely be in late December.
> 
> A few words about the highly charged content of this story...
> 
> I've decided to add content warnings to each chapter. I've tried to numerate obvious possible triggers, but I can't predict what could be triggering for every single person who reads this fic. If there's a specific content warning I haven't made but which you think should be there, I would be more than happy to add it.
> 
> I'm writing about some dark and difficult topics, not all of which I have personal experience with. This story is helping me work through some challenging things in my own life, but I don't want to harm people or misrepresent others' experiences in the process. I want to learn to be a good writer, and part of being a good writer is being respectful of my (admittedly very limited) audience. It is in no way your responsibility to fill in the gaps in my ignorance. However, if you find yourself hurt or made uncomfortable by an inadequate handling of these topics, and you would like to let me know, please do so. I would love to open a dialogue with you and work towards crafting a better story.
> 
> "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is a creation of J. K. Rowling, David Yates, Warner Bros. Pictures and Heyday Films. I claim no rights to the original content. This story wasn't written for profit, but for my own amusement (and perhaps yours).


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the rating, archive warnings and tags are subject to change as the story progresses.
> 
> The specific content warnings for this chapter are: Racism, Sinophobia, homophobia, internalized homophobia, brief discussion of parental physical abuse, brief description of wounds caused by said physical abuse, and eugenics.

Credence watches the city flick past through cracks in the crowd. Grey stone, steel scaffolds, and every now and then, a burst of sky.

June is crawling up and making itself cozy – wetting seersucker collars and filling the trolley with the stink of sweat. Commuters clog the centre aisle, swaying with the ease of sailors as they chug along the bending tracks. Credence and his family take up four sought-after seats near the front doors. The young man grips his placard close, trying to fold himself up small, but knows he’s failed by the condescending glances dripping off the man standing over his seat.

In fact, he can feel the stares of every person on the cable car. The Barebones are castoffs, fanatics, and to Credence’s chagrin, unwitting theatre for the less unlucky masses. Complimentary with a trip uptown, these travellers have the morbid pleasure of gawking at people who don’t fit it, and when they reach their destinations, thinking: ‘Well, at least I’m not like _them._ ’ Their eyes gouge the careful, looping letters he painted just the other night in three coats of crimson. Ma and the girls each have signs of their own, faith writ large for all to see.

‘WITCHES WALK AMONG US!’

“It’s not 1700 anymore, boy,” says the man above his seat as they rattle eastwards. He's formidably tall, with a cap slouching low on his brow. “Anyone with any sense doesn’t believe in spooks and witches.”

Credence doesn’t reply, just shifts his eyes to the floor. People tend to leave him alone if he pretends they’re not there. Tend to. Ma’s not so easily cowed, though. It’s her mission to save the non-believers, and what better place to do the Lord’s good work than here in a crowded box, where no one can escape?

“The Bible names magicians and diviners as sinners,” she says clearly and loudly, to be heard above the rumble of the rails. “God tells us witches are real, and Christians must uphold the word of God.”

The commuters standing closest lean as far away as they can, afraid her strangeness might be catching.

The man huffs through his nose. “What proof do you have that witches ‘walk among us’?” he demands. “I suppose you’ve seen a witch with your own two eyes!”

Ma just stares at him a moment, wild-eyed and self-assured, but without response. Credence almost thinks she’s stumped, but when the avenue winds left, she cranes her head around to see the oncoming row of buildings through the window.

“There!” she says triumphantly, nodding her head at the second warehouse in the line. Or, what used to be a warehouse. Only two walls are standing. The rest have been reduced to a massive heap of bricks and splintered beams. Police barricades line the perimeter of the mess, and a clean-up crew is scrambling through the wreckage.

“It collapsed Tuesday night, without any explanation! And the same thing happened to a house on the Lower East Side just the other week! Something sinister is loose in our city!”

The man narrows his eyes. Doubtless he’s heard about the collapses in the papers.

“That thing’s been empty for years!” he barks, as the trolley gives a chime and slows to a halt. “There’s nothing supernatural about an old building falling apart!”

Luckily for the Barebones, they’ve reached the stranger’s stop. With one last scowl, he wedges his way out the back double doors and shambles out of sight. Modesty breathes a loud sigh, but the shared relief that sweeps through the trolley doesn’t last long. A Chinese woman squeezes her way aboard, one hand clutching a carpet bag, the other wrapped around the wrist of her tiny son. The crowd stiffens, their pale faces growing even paler. Credence knows the sorts of stories that must be racing through their minds: tales of Tong War murders, opium scandals and exotic illegals. A pair of aliens has appeared in their midst, creatures even more intriguing and horrendous than the Barebone zealots.

Credence reckons he ought to feel grateful his strangeness has been lessened by compare. Still, he can’t bring himself to relish the hard looks redirected their way.

“To the back,” the operator snaps.

The woman cranes her neck above the crowd in search of a spot. There’s standing room, but only just a smidge. The doors clunk shut as the trolley lurches into motion, and she grabs a pole just in time to keep herself and her son from flying. The woman tries to push her way through the throng of people, but a thicket of unbudging elbows blocks her path.

“I said to the back!” the operator shouts, irritated now. “Or I’m kicking you out at the next stop!”

The woman tries seeking out the faces of the people in her way, but they’ve all become interested in the Colgate's ads above the windows. Her toddler starts tugging on his mother’s dress and making unhappy cries, frightened by the shaking of the car. Credence is sure he’d be trampled before they even made it to the rear.

“Please,” he says quickly, before he can second-guess himself, “take my spot.”

He tries to pull himself from the chair, but it’s hard to maneuver with his sign.

The woman cocks her head in something like surprise and waves her hand for him to stay. She knows there’s no hope of switching places, even if Credence doesn’t.

“She can’t sit there!” the operator yells, watching the whole thing through his mirror. “Orientals go to the back! How many times do I have to say it?”

The woman heaves her son against her chest and hushes him softly as the operator slows down, pulling up to another stop. He cranks around in his seat to shout directly in her face, but never has the chance.

“I know, I know!” she snaps. “You don’t have to say it! I’m leaving!”

Ignoring the sign that says not to exit through the front, she jumps past the people getting on, landing on the sidewalk with remarkable finesse. “I’d rather walk all the way there than listen to you harp on, anyhow!”

The operator’s face flushes red, furious and startled to be given lip by an Asian. He slams the doors in the woman’s face, but she glares at him through the glass as he pulls away, and keeps on glaring until they disappear around the corner.

Credence holds her in his sight as long as he can. It’s moments like these he’s reminded that he’s not the only grudging performer in New York City’s human circus, not the only one whose personhood is disregarded time and time again. As low as he feels, Credence still stands a rung or two above many a person in this city’s social order, simply by virtue of complexion. He could never know the true character of that woman’s struggles, as distinct as they are from his own. Still, he feels a tug of kinship towards her. They’re outsiders in different ways, but outsiders still. Even keener than this pull of recognition, though, is a twinge of envy towards her brazen act of anger.

There’s a sudden clutch at his side, and Credence looks down to find Ma’s fist around his arm. Her leather glove creaks as she squeezes hard. They’ll have words, she says, without so much as speaking. Later at the church.

Soon the four of them reach the final station, and disembark to walk the short distance to City Hall. It’s early Monday morning, and men and women are zipping around the square, the beginning of another workweek dauntingly near. City Hall is a white beast of stacked windows and Grecian pillars. At its very peak is a cupola crowned by an icy Justice personified, and below is a wide cascade of steps – the perfect stage. The Barebones march themselves halfway up the stairs, where Ma unfurls their standard and mounts it on a pole: An image of a wand being snapped in two above a pit of gold and scarlet flames. She’s made sure they’re the first to arrive, but it isn’t long before the congregants start to trickle in. Two and three at a time, their sombre mass multiplies, a shadow creeping across the marble façade in modest black attire. People on the street begin to stop and stare. Politicians scoff as they dismount from their automobiles and bustle inside.

“Here!” says Ma, unpacking stacks of pamphlets from her bag and shoving them in her eldest children’s hands. “You take the right flank!”

Credence and Chastity follow command and descend to the corner of the lowest step. They’ve carried this order before. Their job is to engage in discussion with passer-by’s, or at least stuff flyers in their pockets. The pair take their position just as Ma starts up a sermon.

“We are here today to deliver a dire truth!” she calls. Ma’s voice, ever so restrained, explodes outwards to command the square. A corpse that’s come alive. “We are here to bring our message to the men who govern this city, in hopes of swift and drastic _action!_ ”

Even more members arrive, adding to their ranks. They’re twenty strong, the largest they’ve ever been. Credence only spots the Mallemorts approaching when his sister gives an irritated sniff.

Mr. Mallemort is proudly waving a sign above his head that reads ‘SAVE AMERICA FROM WITCHES!’, while his wife and children trail behind in a deferential line, like some poor attempt at a parade. Aleister can’t help but clash with their Puritanical palette, his ginger curls threatening to bust free from the confines of his cap. Credence feels queasy at the sight of him, and has to take a deep breath to keep steady. Neither boy looks at the other as they pass.

“A snake in the grass.”

She says it so softly that Credence almost doesn’t hear. He turns to his sister and quirks an eyebrow for elucidation. Chastity’s mouth scrunches like she’s tasted something sour.

“We both know he isn’t following the Lord’s path,” she whispers. “He’ll get what’s coming to him, and he’ll get it soon.”

“What do you mean?” Credence asks, alarmed.

Chastity peeks around her shoulder to be sure no one is listening in. “I can’t say much,” she says, leaning close, “but I’ll say this: Witches, and anyone under the Enemy’s spell, they’ll all be cleansed. At next week’s meeting, every serpent will be chased from the garden. Ma will make sure of it.”

Credence is almost knocked backwards with foreboding. Despite his dislike for Aleister, he could never wish him the horrors of his mother’s machinations. But then another thought hits him: If Ma knows about Mallemort, who’s to say Credence isn’t a target too? But Chastity would say so, wouldn’t she? Surely she couldn’t resist the opportunity to see him squirm. Does she assume they’ve been sinful together and informed Ma accordingly? Or does she see Aleister as a rogue aggressor? When Credence was beaten on Tuesday, it was in revenge for the broken teacup, of that he’s sure. But did Chastity reveal the finer details of Aleister’s visit when he wasn’t nearby? Did she whisper suspicions of sodomy while he was bleeding alone on his bedroom floor?

Credence tries to find the answers to all these question in his sister’s face, but she just smiles smugly and goes on watching the traffic in the square.

Then he has yet another, terrible thought: Ma’s come to trust Chastity with her secrets, her plans for the ministry. His little sister is far more powerful than he ever suspected.

The boy doesn’t have long to dwell on it though, because a clump of people is drifting closer. Credence isn’t in the mood to proselytize, hasn’t been for months, but his spirits quickly lighten when he sees who’s in the crowd.

“I think I’ve seen you around,” Tina says, sidling up beside them and taking a munch from her hot dog. “You’re the witch people, right?”

Credence has to stop himself from smiling.

‘ _You’re_ the witch people.’

“We travel all over the city,” says Chastity, a bit snippy. She dislikes women who wears pants. They ask far too many questions. Impossible to convert.

“Have you seen any signs of witches?” Tina asks. Her eyes go wide, like she’s horrified by the very idea. Credence almost snickers.

“Well,” the girl begins, “I’m sure you’ve heard about the collapses –”

But before she can get further, a man barrels up from behind and shoves himself between the two, literally inserting himself in the conversation.

“Tell me what all this hullabaloo is about!” he demands.

Chastity flounders for a moment, bewildered and affronted, but like a good soldier, she recovers her smiling façade and starts rattling off their practiced speech. She has some leeway to be rude with women, but showing anything but courtesy to strange, loud men spells certain disaster.

Tina, meanwhile, huffs in indignation. Her lunch is splattered over the sidewalk. She decides not to inform the man he’s smeared the mustard from her hot dog down the back of his coat, and instead inches up to Credence for a clandestine chat.

“We need to talk!” Credence whispers at once. “Something’s being planned. Something big.”

Tina frowns in worry. “Time and place?”

The boy thinks quickly. “Tomorrow, outside the library. Bryant Park. I’ll be there at twelve.”

Tina nods. She picks up a pamphlet from his stack, gives a little wink, then disappears into the crowd.

Credence wants nothing more than to squirrel away in his room and process everything that’s happened, and it makes the torture of holding his post all the more unbearable. Ma’s droning lecture mixes with the clunking of the trams and the warbles of the pigeons, distorting into nothing but a senseless hum. When he’s not reciting his lines to the public, Credence swings between dreading the future for what his sister hinted is to come, and hoping for its swift arrival, so he can see Tina as quickly as can be. Even when the police form a watchful line along the edge of the park opposite the square, the danger foremost in his mind is next week’s meeting. Even as they pack up their signs and make the long journey home at the first sign of dusk, it’s all he can think about.

To the young man’s relief, Ma’s too aflutter with holy zeal after today’s demonstration to remember her threat from earlier that morning, so he’s spared another ‘lesson’ on the conniving evils of the Eastern races. Credence sneaks away to his bed unimpeded, but stares awake at the ceiling until late into the night, fearing the meeting all the more because he can’t put a finger on what he should be fearing.

The morning comes at last, and no sooner has he choked down his porridge than Credence is making his way to central Manhattan. The library is the single place he’s ever been able to poke at the edges of his truest self. It’s where he reads what he pleases and indulges the strangest of his questions, all without fear of his family’s rebuke.

The boy’s heart skips a beat as his destination comes into sight. The library’s façade has the same stately flavour as City Hall, if City Hall had been built for giants. A sentry of stone lions flanks the triple entryway, guarding the treasures within. Credence breezes past them and into the foyer. He knows precisely what he wants and where to get it, and he’d rather leave sooner than later.

While the library is his favourite place to be, even here he’s out of place. Credence can’t help but feel he’s a trespasser among the marble-clad reading rooms, among the vast painted murals and gilded ceilings. The Columbia boys fretting over term papers and the coffees they spill on their custom suits.

Credence keeps his head low and his steps light as he scurries away to the stacks, up several flights of stairs and deep to the building’s heart. Readers thin away the deeper he goes, until at last all is silent and still, as peaceful as though he’s entered hallowed ground. The tyrannies of ostentation can’t quite reach these close spaces between the shelves, nor the light of the incandescent lamps. Credence is safe in the semi-dark, in the tight embrace of leather spines and musty paper smells.

The young man takes a moment to skim his hand along the titles. He’s always had an understanding with books. They, like Credence, are unassuming on the outside, but full of thoughts and things to say, if only one cares to gently lift the cover.

Credence starts his hunt in the fiction aisles, then moves section to section. Soon he’s balancing an unwieldy stack in his arms; so unwieldy, in fact, that he’s forced to relinquish a few friends to the cart. After holding his breath and checking out his books at the desk, he rushes up Forty Second Street to Bryant Park, just as the bell of St. Mary the Virgin chimes twelve o’clock.

The park is dotted with strolling couples and office workers eating paper bag lunches. Slender trees and stone benches frame a close-cropped lawn of verdant grass. Credence chooses the closest bench and splays out his books on the seat beside him, admiring his collection. There’s _Wuthering Heights_ , which he’s already halfway through, _The Afghan War_ , _Le Morte d’Arthur_ , _The Strange History of the Salem Witch Trials_ , and _The Settlement of the Empire State,_ which he’s nearly finished _._ Of course, a few religious commentaries are thrown in the mix. They’re the only books he won’t return before leaving.

Credence leans back to make himself comfortable, but the motion sends a throb of pain through his shoulders. The boy hisses, quickly returning to his usual hunched position. He’s only just finished finding rusty stripes on the insides of his undershirts. He doesn’t fancy re-opening his cuts just as they’ve begun to heal.

Suddenly, a shadow falls over the bench, tugging him from his moody thoughts. Credence looks up to find Mr. Graves leaning over his shoulder.

Credence thought he’d perfectly preserved his memories of Mr. Graves, attended to every precious detail. Imagination pales in comparison to presence. Through closeness alone, his body exudes a force that catches up the breath in the young man’s lungs. It’s no magic spell, only the effortless meeting of supple light and dark brown eyes, the choreography of wetted lips and simple gesture. His inimitable essence that is, aptly put, bewitching. 

“Mr. Graves!”

Credence jumps in his seat, and the witch huffs in amusement, rounding the bench. Credence scrambles to pull his books onto his lap and give him someplace to sit. 

“I thought it was Tina who was coming?” Credence asks, trying to explain away his startlement.

“What?” asks Mr. Graves. “I’m not good enough for you?” He quirks his brow testily, but there’s a playful gleam in his eye.

Credence flushes and smirks at the ground. “You’ll do,” he mumbles, before he can think to stop himself.

Mr. Graves’ second brow shoots up to meet the first, stunned by the boy’s cheek. He chuckles in delighted surprise. Even Credence is shocked by his own candour. He can’t help but laugh as well.  

“Doing some research, I see?”

Mr. Graves reaches for the top book in Credence’s pile, the one about the history of New York. Credence can smell his cologne as he leans in – icy and bracing, freshly applied.

“I wondered what it was like here before the city was built,” he explains. The book covers very little before the arrival of the Dutch, but he’s gleaned scraps of information here and there. “Did you know the Iroquois have lived here for five thousand years? And it was all woodland before,” he says excitedly, “all marshes and swamps and trees…”

Credence trails away, realizing how utterly stupid he must sound. Who on earth gets excited by swamps? But truth be told, it really hadn’t occurred to him that plants and animals were once more abundant than people in New York. His only interactions with nature have been through parks like this one, tidy parcels set aside for a few curated species. He’s never left the city, and doesn’t suppose he ever will.

“I wish I could’ve seen it…”

Mr. Graves makes a face.

“I’m afraid I can’t sympathize,” he says. “I love this city, despite the fact it’s working hard to do me in. I’d go stir-crazy if there was nothing around.” His eyes wander over the skyline, eventually resting on the Empire State Building. If Credence didn’t know better than to accuse him of romance, he’d say he looks a bit wistful. “I couldn’t leave the mad rushing, the noise, the chase. Not for anything. Not if I tried.”

Mr. Graves is quiet for a long moment, then shakes himself from his far-off thoughts.

“But tell me what the Second Salemers are planning,” he says. “Tina says you’re concerned.”

The older man pulls a pocketbook from his jacket, and, amazingly, a black quill pen. Torn-up notes and scraps of newspaper are tucked inside the pages of the journal. A clipping with the headline ‘Manhattan Mystery: Second Building Collapse in Three Weeks’ juts from the centre.

Credence’s panic from the day before slides right back into place, seemingly sharper in revenge for his brief reprieve. He does his best to keep the quaver from his voice as he recites his story to Mr. Graves. The witch hums pensively and scribbles something in his book as he finishes his tale.

“And the Second Salemers suspect this Aleister has magic? That’s why they mean to ‘cleanse’ him?”

Credence shakes his head. “No… Chasity didn’t seem to think he’s a witch.”

“Then why would they go after him?” asks Mr. Graves. “Their mission is to eradicate magic, isn’t it?”

Credence taps his toes on the sidewalk. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to say it.

“Yes, but… the church has other concerns too,” he explains. “Aleister isn’t… he’s not following the Lord’s path.”

“What’s he done to fall off it, then?”

Credence lowers his voice to the edge of non-existence, but still the words stick in his throat.

“He’s… a homosexual. Maybe. I think.”

Mr. Graves’ quill comes to a sudden stop. He shifts his gaze to Credence. The young man nervously meets his eye, expecting to see shock and disgust, maybe even anger at the mere mention of the word. Instead, Mr. Graves just looks thoughtful. He sets aside his journal.

“Ah.”

And that’s all he says.

Credence can’t believe it.

“God forbids it!” he continues. Mr. Graves is an atheist, after all. Perhaps he doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. “God forbids it, and the law forbids it too!”

“Hmm, that’s right,” the witch replies. He gives a long sigh and settles a little deeper in his seat. “I’d forgotten about your backwards laws.”

It takes a moment for Credence to process this response.

“What do you mean?” he asks. “Your laws, they don’t…?”

He can’t tell whether the feeling in his stomach is giddiness or horror. Perhaps it’s both.

“No, it’s not illegal,” says Mr. Graves, quite nonchalantly. Completely, inappropriately undistressed. “Though it’s not exactly celebrated, either. There’s a lot of talk these days about ‘preserving the magical family lines.’ You could see how some people might view marriage between two men or two women as, well… unproductive.” He gives a humourless smile. “And then, there’s always people who hate anyone who’s different. That’s a human constant, I’m afraid, no matter what world you’re in.”

Credence doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear another word. It’ll make him hope, which would be too painful to bare. Still, he’s rooted to the spot, at once too afraid to leave this strange man’s side.

“Marriage?” he squeaks. The idea is preposterous, exhilarating.

Mr. Graves nods. “Wizarding marriages are binding magical contracts. They run much deeper than any flimsy vow or property agreement. Your magic, your life force, becomes intertwined with your partner’s. Anyone has the right to bind their magic to another’s, if they so choose. Regardless of the sex of those involved.”

Credence glances at Mr. Graves’ left hand without thinking. Funny – he’d never wondered if he was married before, but judging by the absence of a ring, it seems he’s a bachelor.

The boy realizes his mouth is hanging open, and shuts it with a snap. Credence has no idea what to say, so he says exactly that:

“I… I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about.”

Mr. Graves smirks. “I’ll bet it is.”

He gives Credence a moment to try and sort himself out before getting back on topic. Credence reckons he’ll need a lot more than a moment to do any kind of sorting. 

“But listen, Credence,” says the witch, “from what I’m hearing, it sounds like the Second Salemers have a few people under watch. So maybe Aleister doesn’t have magic, but there might still be a witch among you. Which means that an appearance at this upcoming meeting is in order. Just in case.”

Credence opens his mouth to warn against the idea, an image of Mr. Graves being torn to shreds by a ravenous pack of witch-hunters rearing up in his mind. Then he shuts his mouth again. Mr. Graves has _magic_. And what’s more, he’s _Mr. Graves._ Of course he can hold his own against his mother and her followers. Really, it’s his church he should be worried for, knowingly bringing amongst them a servant of the Devil. Oddly enough, he doesn’t think he is.

“I’ll see you there, then,” Credence says.

Mr. Graves nods. “It’s a date.”

Credence flushes hard at the choice of words, but lucky for him, Mr. Graves is too busy checking his pocket watch to notice.

“I still have a few minutes before I'm due back at the office,” he says. The man lets his head roll back against the bench. “I think I’ll catch a bit of sun before I do. Don’t mind me, you can go ahead and do your reading.”

Credence very much doubts he’ll be able to concentrate on _anything_ , but opens his book all the same. He stares blankly at a chapter on the fur trade for a solid five minutes. The boy's emotions are storming inside him, blustering between revulsion, puzzlement and deep, aching want, and all the time he can’t help but be aware that Mr. Graves is close beside him. Just sitting at his side, as though he has absolutely nothing else to do. Completely unaffected by this strange exchange.

Come to think of it, Mr. Graves never gave his opinion on homosexuality. He said some witches don’t approve of the practice. Could he be one of them? Credence knows which answer he’d prefer. He’d prefer not to prefer what he prefers.

After much deliberation, the young man clears his throat, grabbing the other's attention. He feels bold today. Perhaps it was that lady on the streetcar.

“Yes?” asks Mr. Graves. He's unexpectedly un-annoyed by the interruption.

Credence almost changes his mind under the warm weight of his expectant stare, but somehow pushes through.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“About what?”

“About… men. Like that.”

Mr. Graves gives an odd sort of smile. It seems a little sad, a little smirking, and a little something else that Credence can't quite place.

“I think he deserves so much better."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> J. K. Rowling's latest bout of transphobia has motivated me to go ahead with writing one of the characters in this story as trans. I'd been hesitant to do so, but now I'm determined.
> 
> I've adjusted the tags to reflect this decision. Although I would hope otherwise, if a trans character sounds like it might be a deal-breaker for you, please check the tags. 
> 
> "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is a creation of J. K. Rowling, David Yates, Warner Bros. Pictures and Heyday Films. I claim no rights to the original content. This story wasn't written for profit, but for my own amusement (and perhaps yours).


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